We have heard China is Nokia’s biggest Windows Phone market, and now some research from a Chinese research firm Umeng has revealed just how big the market is.

According to Umeng there were 7.4 million Windows Phones in use in China in the first half of 2013. This number compares to less than 4.4 million in USA.

Due to the massive size of the Chinese market however Windows Phone is still only a drop in the bucket there. Around 500 million smartphones are in use and of these 340 million ran Android and 150 million were iPhones.

The market is still growing rapidly, and the number of smartphones in China in the second quarter was double that of the number in the fourth quarter last year, the report said.

As the Chinese market grows the country should become increasingly important to developers, especially given the poor traction of Windows Phone in USA.

With emerging markets also growing much more rapidly than the west, Microsoft also needs to be paying a lot more attention to these markets, and the low cost and high level of functionality and features they demand.

Via Chinadaily.com