According to a new report from our WDS (Devices) service, several hundred million mobile phones will flow through "closed" operator channels worldwide during 2015. Some regions are dominated by operator-led channels, while others are dominated by "open" retailer channels.

Notably, China is seeing significant changes in cellphone distribution flows at the moment.

Our extensive report -- available to clients here -- forecasts global handset distributionflows by 8 channels for 6 major regions and 3 key countries from 2012 to 2020, including North America, Western Europe, Latin America, China, Japan and India.

The forecasts can be used by handset vendors, vehicle makers, apps developers and others to identify the main regional channels where mobile devices are being sold, and whether operators or retailers are winning the distribution wars.