Smartphone shipments in China hit a record high of 60 million units, or three times more than personal computer shipments in the country, in the third quarter, according to a report by International Data Corporation.

In the quarter ended Sept 30, smartphone shipments rose 38 percent over the previous quarter, the report said. The figure was much higher than the overall domestic mobile phone growth rate of 9 percent during the same period.

"In order to stimulate customer demand in the summer holidays and the National Day holiday, mobile phone makers expanded their product shipments," said Yan Zhanmeng, senior analyst at IDC China.

Yan said that mobile phone vendors also cooperated with telecom carriers to launch several dual-core affordable smartphone models.

"Those factors resulted in the record high shipments," Yan said.

The Chinese market accounted for more than 70 percent of smartphone shipments in the Asia-Pacific region in the third quarter.

"Domestic mobile phone makers, such as Lenovo, Coolpad and ZTE, demonstrated competitive potential by ranking among the top five mobile phone vendors in the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan)," said Wong Teck-zhung, senior analyst at IDC.

Apple Inc's ranking in the Chinese smartphone market fell to No 6 in the third quarter, as the company occupied less than 10 percent of market share in China in the period, IDC said.

[email protected]