Smartphones beat TV for 54% of Chinese users

OVER half of Chinese smartphone owners would sooner give up TV than their mobile device, which represents a huge growth opportunity in the world's biggest phone market, according to a Google survey released yesterday.

In the survey, 54 percent of consumers preferred mobile devices than watching TV, said Google which developed Android, the world's most popular smartphone system.

About one-third of urban Chinese consumers are smartphone owners who mainly use them to do searches, surf the Internet, social networking, send e-mail and watch online video, according to the survey done by Google Inc and Ipsos Research.

"It's safe to say that China's mobile revolution isn't coming - it's already here," Jason Spero, Google's head of global mobile solutions, said in the survey.

China's smartphone user base accounts for 33 percent of the nation's total population, beating Germany's 29 percent but still behind the 44 percent in the US, according to the survey.

The cheaper Android phones have also hastened the popularity of smartphones. The average price of an Android phone will fall to about 800 yuan (US$126) by the end of this year, said China Unicom and chip designer Qualcomm Inc.

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