More than half of all mobile phone users in China will own and use a smartphone in 2015, eMarketer estimates. The rise of cheap, domestically produced devices combined with escalating disposable income and faster broadband speeds is fueling China’s rapidly growing smartphone market.
There will be about 177 million new smartphone users in China between 2014 and 2018, leading its smartphone user base to jump from 36.3% to 49.1% of the total population.China is a mobile-first country when it comes to digital access. The majority of the country’s internet audience will use a smartphone or advanced feature phone as their primary means of going online.
Young, educated, urban-dwelling adults were early in embracing smartphones. About 77% of 18- to 24-year-olds and 74.6% of 25- to 34-year-olds in the country will use a smartphone regularly this year. These young adults have the highest penetration rates of any age group in China, but there’s still room for significant user gains. eMarketer forecasts that by 2018, 91.0% of 18- to 24-year-olds and about 89% of 25- to 34-year-olds in China will use a smartphone.
Smartphone usage is lower among teens and older adults, but these less-penetrated groups will post higher-than-average growth rates for the duration of the forecast period. eMarketer expects about three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds and 35- to 44-year-olds to own and use a smartphone by 2018, though smartphone users will still only account for a minority of children and adults 45 and older at this point.
China has a significantly larger male population, which has led men to have a more highly penetrated and substantially larger smartphone audience than women. eMarketer projects that there will be 269.6 million men in China who will use a smartphone regularly in 2014, accounting for 50.5% of male mobile phone users. Comparably, China’s 229.6 million female smartphone users will represent 47.7% of female mobile phone users.
There will be an 8-percentage-point share gap between male and female smartphone users this year, which will diminish annually as more women take up smartphones. By 2018, the gender gap currently seen among China’s smartphone users will be nearly nonexistent
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