China passes U.S. in smartphone numbers

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SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18 (UPI) -- China has passed the United States as the world's largest market for active smartphone devices, a report by a U.S. research firm says.

Flurry, based in San Francisco, reported Monday active Android and iOS devices in China now outnumber those in the United States.

Flurry said their report was derived from "more than 2.4 billion anonymous, aggregated application sessions per day across more than 275,000 applications around the world."

The data comes from Android and iOS apps that embed Flurry's analytic tools in their mobile apps, the company said, adding it believes its measurements include 90 percent of the world's smartphones, tablets and other "smart devices."

In January, both countries had roughly the same number of active devices -- about 222 million in the United States and 221 million in China -- but Flurry said it estimates February will find China with 246 million active devices while the United States will have 230 million, MacObserver.com reported Monday.

China and the United States each have more active devices than the next eight countries combined, Flurry said.