Nokia and Motorola nab 90% of China

Nokia's smartphones are proving popular in China
Nokia's smartphones are proving popular in China

A new report has stated that Motorola and Nokia are grabbing the lion's share of the Chinese smartphone market, one of the potentially largest in the world, with the rest forced to merely feed off scraps.

In fact, Nokia is lording it over everyone with a 69 per cent share and Motorola holds 20 per cent of the growing sector.

Both of these foreign companies are beating the likes of the Asia-native HTC, Samsung and LG.

Bad news for Android?

The reports come from TelecomTiger, which also states that S60 is by far the dominant platform, holding nearly three quarters of the market. It seems like bad news for Android, because it barely registers on the sales charts. However, given there's only one phone on the market, it's too early to cast aspersions on the system.

Revenues and sales also increased in the last year in the region, so at least China is still up for phoning people on fancy handsets.

The news will be welcome for ailing manufacturer Motorola, as it faces a make or break year with a slew of new products ready to hit the market.

But if you're making 2010 predictions, it's probably best to factor in the minimal influence the iPhone currently has in Asia, given the lack of an official carrier for so long. Come the end of the year, we could be seeing a much more Apple-i-fied picture if Mr Jobs (or his stand-in) have anything to do with it....

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.