Chinese Apps Become Popular Overseas

Chinese apps are popular overseas, especially in Russia, America and Japan last quarter. Tool, photography and video apps are the most popular ones.

In Russia, the top 250 apps in the two largest stores—— App Store and Google Play enjoy over 222 million downloads, among which about 17.88 million comes from Chinese apps, with a share of 8.05%.

In the second quarter of 2017, in the five overseas markets that enjoy the highest iOS non-game app downloads, the largest share belongs to Russia. Based on download share, Chinese apps receive the most popularity in Russia.

It is worth noting that Russia is also the largest overseas market for Chinese mobile games in the first quarter of 2017. According to the analysis of Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence, in last quarter, the top 250 apps in the two largest stores—— App Store and Google Play in Russia enjoy over 222 million downloads, among which about 17.88 million comes from Chinese apps, with a share of 8.05%. Mobile users in Britain downloaded the smallest percentage of Chinese apps, which is 3.3% last quarter. Among those popular applications, musical.ly outperforms other Chinese apps in a number of countries. In addition, tool, photography and video apps perform well both in quantity and download.

As shown above, the second largest market of the second quarter is America. During last quarter, the hottest 250 apps in the two largest stores—— App Store and Google Play enjoy over 572 million downloads in America, among which about 34.82 million comes from Chinese apps, with a share of 6.09%.

Japan ranks the third. The top 250 apps in the two largest stores enjoy nearly 158 million downloads in Japan, among which about 6.46 million comes from Chinese games, with a share of 4.08%.

France and Britain rank the fourth and fifth respectively. In France, the top 250 apps enjoy nearly 83.92 million downloads, among which about 3.18 million comes from Chinese apps, with a share of 3.79%. Share in Britain is close to that of France, both below 4%. The top 250 apps enjoy about 97.25 million downloads in Britain, higher than that of France, among which nearly 3.21 million comes from Chinese apps, only accounting for 3.30%.

Tool, photography and video apps perform well

Last quarter, among the top 250 download list of App Store and Google play in the above five countries, the average number of Chinese apps is 16. There are 21 Chinese apps on the American list, 20 on the Russian list, rank the first and second respectively in terms of number. There are 13 Chinese apps on Japanese, French and UK’s lists.

Among the Chinese apps that are popular with overseas mobile users, the social music app musical.ly has remarkable performance. Our analysis revealed that during the last quarter, musical.ly was the most frequently downloaded Chinese app in America, Britain, and France. In the past three years since its launch, musical.ly targets at western youth people and has swept the European and American markets. By the end of the last quarter, musical.ly was more popular in the three countries than any other Chinese apps.

From the perspective of application category, we found that Chinese tool, photography, and video applications take a major share in many countries. Other categories such as social, shopping, and music have also been downloaded, but the number of applications and downloads are lower than that of tools, photography, and video.

The tool app downloads outnumber that of other categories in all the four countries except Britain. Among the Chinese apps downloaded in Russia, the United States and Japan, 44.1%, 48.7%, and 60.4% of the downloads come from tool applications respectively. In America, more than half of the China’s apps are tools (11tool apps in total). Most of these tools are products launched by Chinese publishers for Android phones, such as desktop starters, program keyboards, garbage removal software, and so on. Cheetah Mobile is one of the major distributors.

Photography and video are another popular Chinese apps and can be found in the five countries. In Japan, Britain, and Russia, photography and video account for more than 30% of the Chinese app’s total downloads (24.4% in the American market). The two largest numbers can be found in the UK and Japan, at 35.7% and 35.5% respectively.

Most of these apps are photo editing and image beautification softwares, including S Photo Editor and Z Camera launched by GOMO(久邦数码科技), and BeautyPlus and AirBrush of Meitu Company(美图). Other Chinese developers include Zenjoy(创制优品), EnjoyMobi(影卓), and Button Software(纽扣软件).

Another notable app is Alibaba‘s AliExpress(全球速卖通). In last quarter, AliExpress was the most popular Chinese app in Russia and be downloaded for nearly 3.24 million times, accounting for about 18.1% of the total Chinese app’s downloads. AliExpress also performs well in America, Britain, and France. In France, Aliexpress is the second most popular Chinese app in terms of downloads, only second to musical.ly.

Chinese apps need carefull consideration when go abroad

The above analysis provides some guidance for China’s app distributors who are going abroad and can help them position market from the perspective of countries and app categories. For example, Russia is the largest market, but the US market should not be neglected, especially for its larger total downloads and the largest absolute download number of Chinese app.

In terms of category, tool, photography and video and social networking apps are popular, but the competition led by giants such as Cheetah Mobile and musical.ly is especially intense. Photography and video and social application development should focus more on breaking through cultural barriers so as to attract overseas users. When it comes to different markets, Chinese app distributors need all-round consideration.

This article originally appeared in 36kr and was translated by Pandaily.

Click here to read the original Chinese article.