Promotion of mobile applications in the Chinese market Automatic translate

Much has been said about the enormous opportunity of China’s growing mobile app economy. When it comes to global smartphone adoption, China is a powerhouse of growth and boasts the largest smartphone owner base in the world, with more than one and a half billion devices in China in the spring of 2020. Because Chinese people are highly connected through smartphones, the mobile market is growing rapidly. Therefore, it is of great importance both for companies looking to expand their business and for new developers looking for a cheaper (compared to Europe and the US) path to success in Chinese app stores.

China is also not a place where quantity is more important than quality. Unlike some other emerging markets such as Latin America and India, there is ample evidence that Chinese users are willing to spend more money on in-app purchases and have a healthy appetite for mobile app downloads that is ahead of many Western figures, but they are also very demanding.

When it comes to promoting apps in China, it poses some challenges. The app store landscape in China is incredibly fragmented and complex, localization is a huge challenge, and developer revenue is dependent on distribution partners, app stores, and even the Chinese government. This creates a high barrier to entry that is insurmountable for small and medium-sized projects alone. In practice, penetration into the Chinese mobile software market from the outside is virtually impossible without the help of specialized local companies, such as, for example, WINWIN CHINA ) https://wwchina.app/ ).

As you probably already know, China has seen explosive growth in smartphone users over the past few years, and while there have been occasional downturns, it’s still going strong. China now accounts for more than 50% of the installed base of the Asia-Pacific market.

Chinese users are willing to spend money on in-app purchases, with 90% of all developer revenue in China coming from such purchases - Chinese users prefer to try features first and then decide whether they are worth paying for. In addition, China is the world leader in revenue growth in the mobile application market.

Android devices (including the new system from Huawei) dominate in China, occupying a share of 75-80%. Despite the 20% share, initially committing to iOS can be a profitable move to enter the market - because there is only 1 Chinese app store for Apple devices to work with, while you can find more than 500 software stores for Android.

The largest Android application store in China is Tencent My App. As of spring ’20, it was used for 26 percent of all installed applications. Tencent is the developer of the WeChat mobile messenger. The second place is occupied by Huawei App Store - the largest manufacturer of mobile devices in China. Its popularity is also growing and showing excellent performance in the domestic market.

The competitive advantage you need

Since the market is very competitive, it is very important:

• Don’t spend too much time planning and get stuck in a long business development cycle. Your competitors will act quickly, and you need to act quickly, even if it means taking some risks and subsequently changing your product.
• Understanding that some competitors may be well-funded and willing to invest heavily in driving downloads to rise to the top of the charts.

In order for an application to be successful in the Chinese market, it needs full localization, and not just translation into Chinese. To retain your audience, you will need a special design, user interface and functions familiar to local audiences.

You should constantly add new features, include special elements, when Chinese New Year comes, the information you will display in your application should be really clear and easy to access, by creating too many subsections, you will easily lose your Chinese purpose.

China is a difficult country when it comes to app promotion. On the one hand, this is a huge opportunity for Western developers. There is a staggering number of smartphone users in the market with a strong appetite for app downloads and great potential for growth. It is also possible to run very cheap marketing campaigns in China and make a lot of money if you use a freemium business model. But China also poses some serious problems. Localization needs to go beyond language translation to reflect the tastes and preferences of Chinese users, and when it comes to distribution, it’s important to partner with carriers, channels, and app stores to ensure your product is distributed and monetized.

Whether you come to China depends on your goals, the cost of working with your partner, and the effort required to make the app as relevant to Chinese users as possible.