While the U.S. market has been the biggest measure for success with handset makers over the last few years, all of that may soon change as the U.S. smartphone market quickly gets dwarfed by China and others.

According to a new report from ABI Research, China will displace the U.S. as the largest smartphone market by the end of 2013, but just five years later both India and Brazil will pass the U.S. too:

ABI Research forecasts that the top five countries in 2018 will account for 51% of worldwide smartphone shipments while the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries will account for 33% of smartphone shipments. By 2018, Western Europe and North Americas’ share of smartphone shipments will be 33% (equal to BRIC) down from 39% in 2013. It is clear that the growth of the smartphone market over the next five years will depend on operators and handset OEMs delivering optimized and price appropriate solutions to the BRIC consumers.

ABI also projects that Russia will be the 11th largest smartphone market by the end of 2013, but will jump up to the 7th spot by 2018.

• SourceABI Research