A study released by research firm Strategy Analytics (SA) predicts that China will surpass the U.S. this year as the world’s largest mobile handset market by revenues. According to the SA report, total sales of wireless handsets in China will exceed 430m units that, in turn, are projected to generate revenues of USD 87bn during 2014. At the same time, handset sales in the U.S. are expected to stabilize at 163m units to result in total revenues of USD 60bn this year. Both the U.S. and China reported USD 57bn in handset revenues for 2013, which, when compared to this year’s projected tally, translates to an astonishing growth rate of 53% for China and a mere 4% for the U.S. Declaring that “China’s impressive mobile growth is being driven by the country’s rapid shift to 3G and 4G smart phones,” SA anticipates that total handset sales in the Chinese market will continue to grow at a year-by-year rate of 15%. While acknowledging that the U.S. “is maturing and has now lost its crown to China” in terms of handset revenues, SA emphasized that the U.S. remains the global champion in terms of profit, noting that “high average selling prices for mobile phones and huge operator subsidies from Sprint and others continue to make the U.S. a very profitable market for major device brands such as Apple, Samsung and Alcatel.”

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