According to South Korea's Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion (IITP) Thursday, India accounted for 6.5 percent of the global smartphone market in 2014, a sharp rise from 2.9 percent recorded two years ago.
The gap with the United States narrowed as the latter's share of the market dwindled from 16.4 percent in 2012 to 11.5 percent in 2014.
China's share, meanwhile, soared by 9 percentage points to 33.8 percent during the two-year period. China has a population of more than 1.3 billion, one-fifth of the world's population.
An official at the IITP said: "Although China has taken the lion's share, growth in smartphone sales there slowed down. In contract, India has become a major battleground for global smartphones makers as its smartphone penetration rate remains low at about 20 percent.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
