SALES of smartphones, especially for 4G and entry-level models, will grow rapidly in the next five years, Qualcomm Inc, the world's biggest phone chip designer, said yesterday.

China now has 270 million smartphone users, ranking it No. 1 in the world. But they only account for 24 percent of China's total mobile user base, which represents a huge potential to boost smartphone sales, Jeff Lorbeck, Qualcomm'ss senior vice president, said during a conference in Shenzhen yesterday. But he didn't elaborate.

From 2012 to 2017, the number of LTE users is expected to surge 70 percent year on year on average globally, according to Qualcomm.

"The transition from 3G to LTE (long-term evolution also known as 4G) is the most rapid in the wireless communications industry,'' Lorbeck said.

China's smartphone sales totaled 78 million units in the first quarter, a surge of 117 percent from the same period in 2012, according to International Data Corp.

China Mobile, the world's biggest telco, has begun testing of 4G in major cities, including Shanghai. By the end of this year, China Mobile aims to sell 1 million domestically-developed TD-LTE (time division-LTE) phones.