The Chinese smartphone market grew 293 per cent between October 2011 and 2012, and will overtake the US in Q1 2013, according to Flurry’s latest stats.

There were 181m active iOS and Android devices in the US in October, with 167m in use in China. The US increased by 55m devices from October 2011, but China has added 125m, more than the UK, Japan and South Korea combined.

The fastest growing markets – selected by Flurry as countries with a minimum of 500,000 active devices in October 2011 – are led by China, with 293 per cent year on year growth. A new set of fast-growers has entered the top 10, including Colombia, Ukraine, Venezuela and the Philippines.

App sessions in the US as a proportion of worldwide sessions dropped from 48 per cent to 29 per cent from October 2011 to 2012. 71 per cent of all app sessions now take place outside the US.

Flurry’s latest stats highlight the ‘global village’ now being driven by mobile, with 750m active iOS and Android smart devices now running across more than 220 countries that will generate around $10bn (£6.2bn) by the end of 2012. 

Flurry uses data from more than 250,000 app that it tracks. It says that it can reliably detect over 90 per cent of all active iOS and Android devices.