MOBILE phone sales in China surged 40 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, thanks to the popularity of low-cost smartphones and subsidies and new services from carriers, China's industry regulator said.
Handset sales hit 163 million units from January to March, 39 percent up on the year before. Some 77 percent were smartphones, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.
Broadcom, which has developed chips for handsets costing less than US$100 each, expects global smartphone sales to hit 1.3 billion units in 2015, with an annual growth rate of 29 percent.
China Unicom, the country's No. 2 mobile carrier, expects to sell 90 million smartphones this year, a 50 percent jump.
Global mobile data traffic is projected to increase 13 times from 2012 to 2017. At least two-thirds will come from video services, according to Cisco, a US-based network equipment firm.
China Mobile, the world's biggest mobile carrier, is upgrading network to 4G, which is said to be 20 to 50 times faster compared to the current 3G network.
This is expected to boost demand for new phones, analysts said.
China is forecast to export 1.1 billion phones this year, 10 percent up on a year ago, the ministry said.