--FILE--Visitors try out Nokia Lumia smartphones installed with Windows Phone operating system at the stand of Microsoft during the Global Mobile Internet Conference 2014 (GMIC 2014) in Beijing, China, 5 May 2014. As China moves towards the 4G era, Microsoft is vigorously pushing its Windows Phone platform through soliciting support from local mobile phone suppliers, reports Shanghais China Business News. The initiative is meant to break the bottleneck around Windows Phone handsets, sales of which have stagnated noticeably in China while its share in the global market has been trapped in the single digits. Last week, Hisense announced plans to roll out a WP mobile phone in July, bringing another Chinese mobile phone supplier into the WP camp following K-touch, which announced a WP mobile phone plan in May. Microsoft could pull itself out of a rut if it can tap the huge 4G market in China. Market research group IDC predicts global shipments of smartphones will hit 1.2 billion in 2014, of which WP will account for only 3.5%, compared to 80.2% for Android phones and 14.8% for the iPhone. In China, WP has only garnered a minuscule 1% since its entry into the market in 2012. Insiders said that the advent of the 4G era will offer WP a new opportunity to improve its market status, as the majority of smartphones currently in use are incapable of supporting the 4G LTE technology.
