Android winning in China, Nokia "dying much faster than expected"

China is probably the most important developing market in the world, if only because of the huge number of subscribers in the Asian country, but while smartphone adoption was initially slow, the mobile revolution is quickly catching up. Apple has already admitted that China is a key market for the company, and the Apple Store expansion plan over there proves that.

But if we are to believe Wang Hua of Innovation Works, John Lagerling, Director of Android Global Partnerships at Google, and David Chao of DCM, it’s Android that’s really starting to get traction. There are over 40 million Android smartphones active in China and the country ranks third in terms of SDK downloads.

“Nobody is making money on Android software in China,” Chao noted. “But over the next two or three years it’s going to be one of the most lucrative properties.”

And it’s not just smartphones, there’s an explosion of Android-based tablets in China and we can imagine that all of those tablet manufacturers will quickly switch to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as soon as it gets open sourced. Currently, the majority of China-made Android tablets run on Gingerbread.

While Android is booming, though, traditionally well known brands like Nokia are fading away quicker than expected.

“Nokia is dying much faster than we expected,” said Hua.

source: TechCrunch