China is now the world's fastest growing mobile market, says report

Android and iOS devices are picking up steam all over the world, but no where are they doing so faster than in China, which earlier this year became the world's fastest growing mobile market. According to recently published research by Flurry Analytics, China now accounts for 24 percent of all monthly Android and iOS activations, while the U.S., the previous leader, makes up 21 percent. This means that China is now closing the gap with the U.S. in terms of its overall installed mobile users. Flurry says that China is now not only the world's second largest app market, it could also eventually surpass the U.S. with the world's largest mobile user base. With all of these new devices entering the market, China is becoming an even more appealing market for game developers, as the region offers a vast audience to develop and release apps for. In addition to the growing number of devices, Flurry says that the number of app sessions within China is increasing at an alarming rate. Between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, app sessions -- defined as the launch and use of an application -- increased 1126 percent in China. The second place region, Argentina, grew at roughly half that rate. To see how this worldwide growth has affected the U.S. market, Flurry compared the distribution of app sessions across the U.S. and the rest of the world. The report says that the percentage of app sessions from the U.S. has dropped roughly 10 percent in the course of one year, despite the fact that the total number of app sessions in the region doubled in that same period. Flurry says this data shows that while the U.S. is still seeing healthy growth in the mobile market, the rest of the world is quickly catching up. Image credit: Flurry Analytics