More mobile apps in China have more than 10 million monthly active users in Q1 2017. The number of installed apps and app usage hours both increased compared to a year ago.

70 mobile apps in China each has over 50 million monthly active users in March 2017, an increase of 32% YoY. 157 each has between 10 million and 50 million users with a growth rate of 6.8%.

Monthly time spent on mobile apps totaled 85.57 billion hours in March 2017, up 26.7% from March 2016. Android users’ spent on apps saw faster growth than iPhone users’.

On average, the number of installed mobile apps grows to 17.1 in March 2017 from 15.8 in March 2016.

The younger users spent more time on mobile apps.

In march 2017, mobile users installed an average of 2.5 apps. The younger user group under 25 y-o installed the most, 2.8 apps.

Apple’s App Store is the top mobile app store in China which recorded over 500 million downloads in March 2017, followed by YingYongBao (Tencent’s App Store), Baidu Mobile Assistant, and 360 Mobile Assistant.

Check out the updated e-book “Mobile Trend in China 2017“.

Apple App Store is the top mobile app store by total downloads in China in March 2017 while BAT lead the Android App Store market. And, Tencent owns the top 3 mobile apps.

Top 20 Mobile App Stores in March 2017

Apple’s App Store is the top mobile app store in China which recorded over 500 million downloads in March 2017, followed by YingYongBao (Tencent’s App Store), Baidu Mobile Assistant, and 360 Mobile Assistant.

Top 30 Mobile Apps in China in March 2017

WeChat is the absolute winner in China’s mobile apps market with over 892 million monthly active users, followed by QQ and Tencent Video; all top three are from the Tencent family. The other mobile apps by MAU in the top 10 include iQiyi, Taobao, Baidu, Weibo, Alipay, Youku, and QQ Browser.

70 mobile apps in China each has over 50 million monthly active users in March 2017, an increase of 32% YoY. Read more on mobile app usage here →

Get more details from the updated E-Book – Mobile Trend in China 2017

iPhone has the highest retention rate (18.6%) in Q1 2017, followed by Huawei (13.4%). However, Huawei is the top smartphone brand in China by sales (19.2%) in the first quarter of 2017, followed by OPPO (18.7%).

China Smartphone Retention in Q1 2017

Smartphone Sales in China in Q1 2017

Top Android Smartphones

Top iPhone Models in Q1 2017

Related: E-Book: China Mobile Trends 2017

iOS market share dropped to 26.3% in China’s smartphone market from 29.1% in January 2017 according to a research company Newzoo.

iPhone remains the top smartphone brand in China in February 2017 by the number of monthly active devices (26.3%), followed by Huawei (15.6%), Xiaomi (13.8%), OPPO (13.8%), and Vivo (12.1%). Xiaomi AppStore bypassed Baidu Mobile Assistant to be the third Android App Store in China in Feb 2017.

OPPO and Vivo are the top two smartphone brands in Feb 2017 by sales, primarily driven by offline sales. Xiaomi dropped to the sixth with only 3.3% market share in offline sales and 23% in onlinene sales according a Chinese research company Sino.

• OPPO sold 7 million units offline (13.5 billion yuan), 206 thousand units online (460 million yuan)
• Vivo sold 6.17 million units offline (11.1 billion yuan), 187 thousand units online (464 million yuan)
• Xiaomi sold 1.1 million units offline (1.24 billion yuan), 1,896 thousand units online (2,277 million yuan)

Huawei’s HONOR (1.904 million units; 2.6 bn yuan) and Xiaomi (1.896 mn units; 2.28 bn yuan) are the top two best selling smartphone brands in terms of total online sales.

The top 10 Android app stores by total user coverage in China in December 2016 according to TalkingData are:

1. 360 Mobile Assistant
2. Tencent’s App Store
3. Baidu Mobile Assistant
4. Xiaomi App Store
5. OPPO App Store
6. Xiaomi Games Center
7. Huawei App Store
8. Google Play
9. Vivo Games Store
10. Vivo App Store

In comparison, another research company iiMedia data showed that the top 3 app stores by total number of active users in Q4 2016 were 360 Mobile Assistant (42.4%), Tencent App Store (34.8%), Baidu Mobile Assistant (25.1%), Wandoujia+PP Assistant (21.2%).

China has surpassed the United States as the largest market in the world for iOS App Store revenue earning over $1.7 billion in Q3 2016.

Download E-Book for details: Mobile Trend in China 2017 (CIW Premium members only)

Google launched Android Pay yesterday in Hong Kong to speed through purchases in stores and in apps.

Hongkongers can now use Android Pay at over 5,000 locations in Hong Kong where contactless payments are accepted, including stores such as at 7-Eleven, Circle K, Fortress, Mannings, Maxim’s Cakes, MX, McDonald’s, Pacific Coffee, PARKnSHOP, SmarTone, Watsons, Wellcome and more. Android Pay also stores your gift cards, loyalty cards and special offers right on your phone.

Android Pay works with MasterCard and Visa cards from BEA, DBS, Dah Sing Bank, Hang Seng Bank, HSBC, and Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong.

iOS declined in Urban China, falling to 13.5% of smartphone sales according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Android dropped 1.7 percentage points in the US.

iOS accounted for 13.5% of smartphone sales In Urban China in the three months ending August 2016, the lowest share for iOS since before the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in July 2014 according to Tamsin Timpson, Strategic Insight Director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Asia.

Android accounted for nearly nine out of every ten smartphones sold, with Huawei and Xiaomi remaining the top two brands in the region. Oppo, close on Apple’s heels, accounted for 10.6% of sales, with the Oppo R9 becoming the second best-selling phone in the region at 4%, behind the iPhone 6s at 4.3%.

The top three smartphone brands in September 2016 are Huawei (22%), Vivo (15%), and Oppo (13%) according to Dixintong. Find out more here.

Also read: Top 10 mobile apps by MAUs in Sep 2016

25% of China smartphone users use the iOS operating system in 2016, a slight growth compared to the past year which was 21%.

Although majority of China smartphone users use Android phones, 78% iOS users are loyal to their operating system and only 9% iOS users will select an Android smartphone as their next smartphone. As for Android users, 59% of them will continue using Android phones, which has increased 33% compared to 2015.

Apple iPhone is the most popular brand in China while Huawei becomes the most frequently used Android brand (17%), followed by Xiaomi (13%) and Samsung (8%).

29% users use new iPhone models in 2015 and 28% in 2014 after a 7-months release.

As for different iPhone models, 21% of users use iPhone 5s in 2015, followed by iPhone 4s (19%) and iPhone 6 (15%); in 2016, 21% of users use iPhone 6, followed by iPhone 6s (16%) as well as iPhone 5s (16%).

The most popular smartphone brands in China in 2016 are Apple (25%) and Huawei (17%). Huawei has increased seven percentage points while Apple has decreased 4. Samsung’s share dropped from 17% in 2015 to 8% in 2016.

35% of Chinese users want to buy an iPhone as their next smartphone while 19% of them want to buy an Huawei smartphone.

In terms of different smartphone users, most of Chinese iPhone users still plan to buy an iPhone in the future (77%), Huawei as the second option.

59% Huawei users show loyalty to their current brand, but 17% of them tend to switch to iPhone.

45% Xiaomi users will continue using Xiaomi smartphones; 21% will turn to iPhone and 12% to Huawei.

56% iPhone users are female while 59% Huawei users are male.

The 80s and 90s are drivers of the smartphone market; 37% of iPhone users are the 90s and 36% are the 80s; Huawei users are mainly the 70s (25%), the 80s (30%), and the 90s (25%).

iPhone users in tier 1 and tier 2 cities are more than Huawei users; but, in tier 3, tier 4 and below, Huawei users are more than iPhone users.

Near half of iPhone (42%) and Huawei (44%) users have the income of roughly 2,000 to 5,000 yuan a month.

28% iPhone users are white-collars and 21% are students. Both white-collar employees and students account for 20% of Huawei users.

Top 10 Android brands in 2016 are Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Meizu, Lenovo, Coolpad, Le smartphone, and Gionee.

In tier 4 and below, Oppo users account for 45% and Vivo 47%.

The 90s are the major users of Oppo and Vivo; 46% of the respondent 90s are Oppo users and 59% Vivo users.

23% Chinese users plan to buy an Oppo smartphone as their next Android smartphone brand, followed by Xiaomi (19%) and Huawei (12%).

58% Oppo users and 56% Vivo users are female, which show that Oppo and Vivo smartphones are more popular for females.

47% students use Vivo and 45% use Oppo.

Paid games ratio of mobile role play games and chess games are higher than card and action games in China in 2016 according to TalkingData.

Chess games earned the most DAU/MAU on both iOS operating systems and Android operating systems.

In terms of average weekly active rate, strategy games had the highest average weekly rate of 9.74% by Android operating system users, followed by leisure games (9.29%) and simulation games (8.89%); on iOS, chess games had the highest average weekly active rate of 10.16%, followed by leisure games (9.42%) and puzzle games (9.27%).

In terms of average monthly active users rate, action games had the highest with average monthly active rate of16.93% on Android operating systems while chess games enjoyed the highest on iOS operating systems.

The average one-day player active rate of card games was the lowest (43.37%) on Android operating systems while that of action games was the highest (53.21%). On iOS operating systems, the puzzle games had the lowest one-day player active rate of 36.94% while that of role play games was the highest (49.72%).

The highest next-day retention rate of mobile games on Android operating systems was card games (27.88%) while on iOS systems it was action games (36.21%).

China’s Chess games remained the highest on 7-day retention rate on both Android operating systems (9.55%) and iOS operating systems (12.38%).

Chinese users played strategy games the most, about 4.91 times a day on average on Android operating systems and 5.53 times a day on average on iOS operating systems.

Android operating system users played role play games for 640 seconds a day on average; and, iOS operating system users played strategy games for 1079 seconds a day on average. Both the two mobile games had more average usage seconds among other mobile games.

In 2012, mobile accounted for just 5.4% of all gaming in China. Last year, it accounted for a whopping 36.6%, if you include the export value (as DataEye does) according to Lisa Hanson, a contributor who covers PC, console and mobile games industry in Asia.

The third-party mobile app stores had 444 million active usrs as of Q1 2016, led by Qihoo 360’s 360 Mobile Assistant (42.6%), Tencent’s Myapp (34.6%) and Baidu Mobile Assistant (25.5%).

Baidu Mobile Assistant partnered with Apple to promote Apple Music for Android smartphones in January 2016. In the same month, 360 Mobile Assistant launched its TVC endorsed by TFBOYS, a teenage Chinese boy band. Tencent also held a party of its Myapp app store in Beijing.

The total number of active users reached 444 million in Q1 2016 according to iiMedia Research.

360 Mobile Assistant, owned by Qihoo 360, led Android app stores market in China in Q1 2016 based on iiMedia Research data.

Among Android app stores owned by smartphone brands, Xiaomi App Store owned the 25.6% active users, followed by Huawei Ap Store and Meizu Flyme.

Also read: 95 out of 100 Chinese own a mobile phone in 2015

Penguin Intelligence, part of Tencent, recently conducted a survey on iPhone losing users in China.

Over one-third of China smartphone users would replace smartphones for new ones at least once a year; over three-quarters of Chinese would do so every two years according to the survey.

If an iPhone user is to replace his phone with an Android phone, Huawei is the top choice.

iOS operating system is the most addictive feature of iPhone.

Nearly half of iPhone users are a bit worried that iPhone will be surpassed by Android phones.

Post-90s generation in China relies more on performance data and professional reviews while choosing a smartphone, compared with post-70s and post-90s.

China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo. China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active ratio in 2015 according to TalkingData. Mobile chess games were popular among China mobile players in 2015.

Paid games rate of mobile role play games, action, and strategy games were higher than leisure games and card games in 2015. Mobile role play games, action, and strategy games have gradually captured more market in China.

China’s mobile RPG (role play game), FPS (first person shooting), MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), SLG (simulation game), and card games which increased in a large amount in 2015 made the user retention rate increase and one-day user rate decline.

Some large companies such as Tencent began to develop the vertical market of mobile games in 2015. Although many players spent more time on some games, the overall usage seconds declined in 2015.

China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active rate in 2015. Companies tended to transform to content-oriented APRU (average revenue per user) games.

Paid game ratio of role play games was the highest in December 2015. Pay game rate declined slightly overall while the rate of action games and role play games increased by about 4% in December 2015 compared to the previous month.

The weekly average active rate on the iOS operating system was higher than the Android and it increased by 39.5% compared to the previous month in December 2015. The weekly average active rate on Android system increased by 4.9% compared to the previous month.

The monthly active rate of puzzle games was the highest in Android smartphone players and monthly active rate of leisure games was the highest in iOS mobile players in December 2015. The monthly active rate increased by 9.4% month-on-month on iOS system and 0.3% month-on-month on Android system.

Mobile chess games had the lowest one-day player rate on average in December 2015. Chess games have traditionally been popular among users in different ages and careers. One-day play rate decreased slightly in December 2015.

Next-day retention rate rose by 11.8% month-on-month on Android system in last December. Mobile chess games had the highest next-day retention rate which might be influenced by the characteristics of chess games.

Seven-day retention rate increased 19.5% on iOS system in December 2015. Mobile chess games had the highest 7-day retention rate.

Mobile players on iOS system were more addicted to mobile games in December 2015. Many mobile games increased in usage seconds and usage times in December 2015, among which role play games, action games, and chess games maintained a large growth extent.

Mobile players in iOS system spent more time on games than Android players in December 2015. Mobile Android players spent an average of 598 seconds on role play games and iOS players spent an average of 1,080 seconds on strategy games in December 2015.

Global mobile gaming market reached more than US$30 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo, a Dutch research institute. China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion (equivalent to the entire North American market revenue) with an increase of to 46.5% YoY in 2015 being the world’s largest market. China online gaming market was expected to reach $22.2 billion in 2015 according to TalkingData.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

Transaction volume of China’s smartphone market rises to 470 million units in 2015 from 120 million in 2011 and is expected to reach about 470 million in 2016 which tends to saturate according to Sino-mr.

The YoY growth rate of smartphone shipment in China in 2015 is expected to increase by only 1.2% compared with last year’s 19.7% according to IDC while China will remain the world’s largest smartphone market in terms of shipment volume.

Smartphones with over 2,000 yuan (US$310.59) increase this year while handsets under one thousand yuan (US$155.30) have still dominated the market. Smartphone penetration rate in China will reach 38.6% in 2015 according to eMarketer.

Huawei, Apple and Xiaomi lead China’s smartphone market, followed by Samsung, Oppo and Vivo. Apart from Apple and Samsung, the other top ten smartphone brands are China’s local brands.

Android system in China’s smartphone market is expected to account for 81.36%, followed by iOS (11.00%), YunOS (7.10%), Windows (0.43%), Symbian (0.06%), Blackberry (0.01%) and Bada (0.01%).

Also read: 1/4 China Smartphone Users Install Foreign Apps

Mobile apps have covered all aspects of our life, including social communication, life services, information and entertainment and other. By 2015 Q3, 3.1 million smartphones have installed foreign applications according to TalkingData, accounting for about one-quarter of the overall mobile internet users.

Tool apps apply the maximum number of foreign apps (31.0%), followed by social communication (15.5%), travel (11.3%) and photography (10.1%). Social communication apps have a variety of forms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Line and the like.

Users of different mobile operating systems tend to prefer different kinds of foreign apps in China. iOS users love games, video, online shopping, music and radio apps; and Android users are more likely to watch videos, play games, take photos and use map or navigation apps. Usage of education and finance apps by Android users is also higher than the iOS users.

In general, handsets of foreign app users are relatively advanced. Although iPhones 6S was released in Chinese market in late September, 12.0% of iOS users have updated to this model; the proportion of iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 users account for more than 68% of all iOS users. Samsung’s eight smartphone models were in the top ten Android smartphonesi.

The most popular foreign apps on Android in China are Flipboard, Uber, Google Pinyin, Google Maps, Google Search, Google+, Gmail, Google Browser, Hangouts and YouTube. Google owns 70% of the ten most popular foreign mobile apps.

Top ten popular foreign apps on iPhones in China are Facebook, E-Reminder, Uber, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, WhatsApp Messenger, Skype, KFC and Google Browser.

Users of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are concentrated in Taiwan and Hong Kong; more users in north China and first-tier city use Flipboard, Evernote, Airbnb, Uber and other foreign apps. The largest userbase of Uber is in Chengdu.

Also read: Xiaomi App Store: 20 Billion App Downloads in H1 2015

About 2/3 Apple users upgraded to iOS8 in Q1 2015 according to Tencent’s data covering 1.7 billion devices.

This is largely due to pre-installed iOS8 on iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and new iPad which were hot-selling smartphones in China. In addition, new features such as Apple Pay and personal health monitoring motivated users to upgrade to iOS8.

Also read: Xiaomi Beat Samsung As Top Smartphone Vendor in 2014

Over 70% China tablet users use tablets on a daily basis for an average 1.9 hours per day according to a Tencent research.

Home, public place, and train station and airport are the top three places for tablet usage in China.

Near 40% tablet users average usage is more than 4 hours. Most tablet usage in China was in the evening at home.

Near 50% share tablet with family; and tablet sharing is more common with iPad in China than Android powered tablets.

Read more here.

In the first half of 2014, China gaming market users exceeded 400 million with an increase of 9.5% year on year. The total sales value of China gaming market was RMB49.62 billion (US$8.07 billion) with an increase of 46.4% YoY according to CPC & CNG. ZDC‘s latest data also shows on average an iOS game player spend as much as 3 times more than an Android player in 2014.

Total sales value of China client gaming, browser gaming, mobile gaming, social gaming, and single-player gaming were RMB25.57 billion(US$4.16 billion), RMB9.18 billion (US$1.49 billion), RMB12.52 billion (US$2.03 billion), RMB 2.34 billion (US$380.9 million) and RMB10 million (US$1.62 million) respectively.

From January to November in 2014, market share of mobile gaming increased continuously while market share of client gaming is decreasing. As of middle November, client gaming market market share decreased to 53.3% and mobile gaming increased to 33%. However, client gaming still dominated China gaming market in 2014.

2014 is a booming year for China mobile gaming market. According to Nielsen’s research, 47% mobile gaming users play games everyday and 88% of them log in gaming platform for many times per day. China mobile gaming users increased by 62.3% from 2013. As of November 2014, the number of mobile gaming users was 504 million with an increase of 193.5 million. Besides, game usage increased to 62.3% from 2013.

As of 2014, total sales value of China mobile gaming market will exceed RMB20 billion with an increase of 149.4% year on year. It is estimated that total sales value will be RMB35 billion in 2015.

In 2014, there are 500 million mobile gaming users in China which indicates mobile gaming has been one of indispensable entertainment for Chinese. Casual and social games are favored by users in China.

In 2014, 77.4% mobile gaming users use Android OS and only 13.7% of them use iOS to play games according to data of ZDC. However, iOS game users are more willing to pay for entertainment apps, as much as 3 times more than Android game players. Considering large number of Android game users in China, there is great potential in China Android game market.

The peak time for games payment were about 11 a.m-12 p.m and 9 p.m to 10 p.m according to data of 7881.com (a famous game trading platform in China); to strengthen service during peak time may raise users’ second payment possibilities.

61% respondents made Alipay as their first choice to top up game accounts according to the survey of 7881.com. 16% of them pay mobile phone charge for games. Related: China Third Party Online Payment Market in Q3 2014

As of September 30 2014, the top 3 provinces in China by total number of mobile gaming users were Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. 60% China mobile gaming users are from tier-3 cities in 2014 which indicates there are great demand for users in tier-3 cities and more opportunities China mobile gaming market in tier-3 cities and lower ones in the future.

Also read: China Browser Games for Children Market to Exceed 2 Bln Yuan in 2016

In Q3 2014, top 3 China Android app stores were 360 mobile assistant, Myapp(Tencent) and Baidu mobile assistant.

Having risen from the 8th to the 6th in the previous quarter, MIUI app store (Xiaomi) growth shows no signs of slowing down as it rised to the 5th, closing in on Google Play – their smart phone activation growing from 11% in Q2 to 12% in Q3. This steady climb is in line with previous estimates, with much of the companies’ gain attributed to its increased smart phone sales across China.

Wandoujia dropped one place to the 6th, their total smart phone reach dropping to 10% compared to 11% in Q2 2014. At the bottom of the ranks Anzhi Market has increased their coverage to 7% (compared to 6% Q2) while Oppo Store outrank the CMCC Mobile Application Market with a total smart phone coverage of 5%.

GunZ Dash ranked top among China Android mobile games. Tencent dominated China mobile game market with 7 of top 10 mobile games were published by Tencent; and 3 of them were in top 5 in Q3 2014.

Also read: China Mobile App Distribution Channels Market Share

According to ZDC China smartphone brand awareness report in March 2014, the number of smartphone manufacturers in China dropped 7 to 98 but the models only dropped 10. Neither global nor Chinese smartphone manufacturers launched new catchy models in March.

Samsung ranked the first in smartphone brand awareness ranking, with 20.1%. Followed by Apple and Huawei with 14.4% and 8.8% awareness respectively. Nokia and Coolpad ranked the third and fourth, but their difference was quite small.

Compared with February, there were eight brands’ ranking changed in March 2014. The top five’s ranking remained unchanged, however, Samsung, Nokia and Coolpad’s brand awareness dropped slightly. Apple and Huawei’s went up a little. HTC, OPPO and ZTE’s rankings all went up by one place, and Xiaomi replaced Motorola to be the top 15 brands.

For product awareness, in March, Apple’s iPhone 5S (16GB) topped with 5.1% awareness, growing 0.5% compared to last month. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 and iPhone 5 ranked the second and third.

Apple had four models on the list, highest of all manufacturers. Samsung, Huawei Honor, HTC and Nokia all had two models on the list.

The data showed that 10 out of top 15 models came into market in 2013, 3 new models were launched in 2014 and the other two were launched in 2011 and 2012. Only one model’s price was below 1000 yuan (USD 162).

For China smartphone price awareness, in March, models with price below 1000 yuan (USD 162) gained a big increase to 19.9%. While models with 1000 to 2000 yuan (USD 162-324) dropped to 28%, but it still had the highest awareness.

Android OS remained the number one with 78.2% awareness, but it dropped 1.3% compared to last month. iOS grew by 2.1 percentage points in March, reaching 14.4%. Windows Phone dropped 2% monthly.

Quad-core smartphone gained most awareness in March 2014, with 56.6%. And dual-core smartphone had 30% awareness, remained the same as last month.

ZDC data showed that models with 5.1-5.5 screen size had 18.1% awareness, increasing 3.2 percentage points. Smartphone with 4.6-5.0 screen size remained the dominant models, but its awareness dropped 0.8% slightly.

Smartphone with over 10 megapixel camera’s awareness increased to 38.1%, growing 1.6 percentage points. Smartphone with 8/8.7 megapixel camera had the highest awareness of 41.2%.

Smartphone with 2000-3000 mAh had the highest awareness of 51.7%.

Case Study

Samsung’s brand awareness in March was 20.1%, though still ranking the top but its advantage was decreasing. Its brand awareness kept dropping since January, industry competition brought more and more pressure on market leader Samsung.

Samsung had 122 models on market, among which 31 models were blow 1000 yuan (USD 162). Models with 3000-4000 yuan (USD 485-647) and over 4000 yuan (USD 647).

ZDC recently released a brand awareness analysis report of China smartphone market in February, 2014. The number of competitive manufacturers in China smartphone market remained unchanged in February, but the number of mobile phones reduced by over 20 compared to last month. For new mobile device, although many manufacturers launched new devices in MWC 2014, these mobile devices have not come to the market yet. There were few new arrivals in the market, and Vivo X3S became the new focus.

Brand Awareness

In terms of brand awareness, Samsung was still running ahead with over 20% awareness, followed by Apple with 12.3%. In February, Huawei ranked No.3 with 8.5% awareness. There were large gaps among top 3 brands, while No.3 to No.5 had closer awareness. Nokia hold a 0.2 points lead over Coolpad.

In the top 15 list, four brands moved up while three fell down. Nokia and Coolpad rose one place to No.4 and No.5 respectively. Lenovo dropped from 4 to 6. HTC surpassed Sony Mobile in February, and Meizu swapped place with Vivo.

Product Awareness

For product awareness, Apple iPhone 5S topped with 4.6% awareness. Samsung GALAXY Note 3 and Meizu MX3 followed, but not so closely. The top 15 devices were from Apple, Samsung, Meizu, Nokia, Huawei, Coolpad, HTC, LG, Lenovo and OPPO. Among them, Apple and Samsung both had three models on the list.  For configuration parameters, 11 out of 15 were using Android OS; 11 models had screen size larger than 5 inch; 8 models had quad-core CPU.

In February, devices in the 1000-2000 Yuan (USD 162 to 324) price range won most awareness, rising 3.3 points to 30.8%. The awareness of devices below 1000 Yuan (USD 162) and above 4000 Yuan (USD 649) fell slightly compared to last month. In other price range, the awareness was about the same as last month.

For operating system, Android still definitely occupied the mainstream with 79.4% awareness. Compared to last moth, Android awareness fell slightly to below 80% again. Apple iOS had 12.3% awareness while Windows Phone had 7.3%, a little higher than January.

Quad-core products were most popular in February; the awareness fell 0.3% to 55.2%. The awareness of dual-core products also decreased slightly (1.1 points), but remained over 30%. Eight-core/two quad-core products were getting more attention, increasing 2 points to 10.7% awareness.

According to ZDC, 4.6-5 inch screen size was the mainstream in February, with 32.7% awareness. Smartphones with over 5 inch screen had 31.4% awareness, representing a possibility of surpassing 4.6-5.0 inch’s. View from the trend, the awareness of 4.6-5.0 inch screen size fell slightly while the 5.0 inch’s kept rising.

As front camera entered the era of 10 megapixel, consumers’ demand of main camera continually increased. In February, smartphones with 8/8.7 megapixel camera were still the focus, but the awareness decreased 1.5 points to 42%. In contrast, the awareness of above 10 megapixel camera kept increasing to 36.5%.

For battery capacity, devices with 2000-3000 mAh battery had the highest awareness, 49.5%, getting close to half. The awareness of above 3000 mAh battery also increased to 19.9%, almost reached 20%. At the same time the awareness of below 2000 mAh battery kept falling.

Case Study: HTC

According to ZDC, HTC ranked No.7 with 4.5% awareness, moving up one place with 0.3% growth. This was a good sign for declining HTC. Recently HTC launched new Desire 8 series which caught people’s eye. This might be a nice start in 2014 for HTC to turn things around.

HTC has 42 models on the market now. Among them, there are 16 smartphones in 1000-2000 Yuan (USD 162 to 324) price range; 10 smartphones were under 1000 Yuan. Only 5 devices were in 2001-3000 (USD 324 to 487) price range, however these 5 devices brought 45.5% awareness for HTC. ZDC suggested that HTC should focus on middle-end and high-end smartphones.

In short, new devices of smartphone giants haven’t come to market yet, so China smartphone market was quiet in February. Nevertheless, it might be the quiet before the dawn: the competition was predicted to intensify next month, and the awareness pattern will change again.

According to Mobile Industry Statistic Report in 2013 released by Tencent, there would be more users choosing Android device in the coming year. As for now, Android devices with large screen and high definition video were becoming the mainstream of the increasing Android market. For Apple, the newest iOS7  spread rapidly among “iFans” (fans of Apple products). At the same time, iOS7 reduced the jailbreak rate of iOS, representing a future of legitimate game.

The report shows that in China mobile device market, the share of Android was 73.3% and iOS accounted for 24.7%. Among all Google Android devices, more than 70% devices ran Android 4.0 or latter versions. The former mainstream Gingerbread (Andorid 2.3) which had about half market share one year ago fell to 15% now and kept decreasing. As Jelly Bean (Android 4.1 and 4.2) gained growing share on Android devices, there would be more low-end devices running 4.0 or above versions.

Among iOS devices, most iOS5 and iOS6 users chose to upgrade when iOS7 released. The golden iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C performed quite good in mobile market, so Apple and China Mobile signed a cooperation agreement. Benefited from the cooperation with mobile operator, iOS7 would gain higher penetration in the future. By December 2013, the newest version iOS 7.0.4 had accounted for over 40% of market.

Meanwhile, the monopoly status of Android was strengthened, encroaching iOS market share bit by bit. Every time one Android user turned to iOS, 5 iOS users would turn to Android.

As more large screen Android devices came out in the market, many Apple fans left iOS for Android. The statistic showed that users went after large screen mobile phones for watching video, as 5-inch devices became popular. It was said that Apple also intend to launch 4.8 inch iPhone 6 this year.

Samsung was still the leader of China Android market with about 30% market share, according to report. Domestic mobile brands such as Xiaomi (12%), Huawei (7%), Lenovo (6.5%), Vivo (6%), OPPO (4%), Shanzhai Phones (China pirated brands, 4%) and Coolpad(4%) also performed well. The market share of domestic Android devices totaled 45%. As domestic smartphones become popular, their price advantage  would attract more users.

At present, 5-inch HD screen device was the majority in Android market. However, from the view of whole market, the leader was still low resolution devices. High-end Android devices with HD (1920*1080) screen, which was the primary resolution of 5-inch screen, rose to the top 5.

In terms of jailbreak, the jailbreak rate of iOS7 was far below iOS5 (61%) and iOS6 (28%), less than 5%. The monthly jailbreak rate kept decrease since iOS7 launched. Analysis suggested that jailbreak would be the less popular due to distribution channel improvement and operating system upgrading.

The pattern of brand awareness of China smartphone market changed a lot in January 2014. Judging by competition situation, smartphone market was gradually entering an era of red ocean; however, as for development prospect, the need of smartphone users was far from being satisfied. Domestic and foreign smartphone vendors were all devoted to meeting users’ different demands of experience. Differentiation became the top priority of mobile manufacturers.

Brand Awareness

On the whole, the competition of brand awareness in China smartphone market was getting more intensely. The accumulative awareness of top 15 brand fell down, representing the lower concentration. Specifically, Samsung topped the ranking with a 20.8% awareness, followed by Apple and Huawei. Awareness of Lenovo was close to Nokia’s, merely 0.4% higher. Coolpad got the sixth place with a 5.6% awareness. The awareness of other brands on the ranking list were all below 5%.

Compared to December 2013, great changes had taken place in just one month. For top 3, Huawei’s awareness rose 2.1 percentage point to the No.3, boosted by new products Honor 3C, 3X and A199. Coolpad also rose 1% with the help of new awesome product, up one rank to seven.

Product Awareness

Apple iPhone 5S (16GB) was still far ahead of other product with a 4.0% awareness. Meanwhile, Apple iPhone 5, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5C were also on the list, making Apple the listed brand with  most products.

The second was Samsung with three products on the list in January. Samsung GALAXY Note 3 (N9006/single SIM card/16GB) ranked the second with 3.0%. GALAXY S4 and GALAXY Note 2 ranked No.4 and No.13 respectively.

It is noteworthy that the newly marketed Huawei Honor 3C (1 GB RAM/China Mobile version) made the top 3 place with a 2.7% awareness, the highest awareness among domestic smartphones. And Meizu MX3 (non-NFC/16GB/Ordinary) ranked No.5.

In terms of price, mid-end phones bwteen 1,000-2,000 Yuan (USD 163 to 326) were still the focus, with awareness of 27.5%. Followed by products of 3,001-4,000 Yuan (USD 490 to 653), its awareness was above 20% too. The awareness of products below 1,000 Yuan (USD 163) and 2,001-3,000 Yuan (USD 326 to 490) were both close to 20%. High-end smartphones over 4,000 Yuan (USD 653) reached 13.9% brand awareness.

For operating system, Android was in the unshakable mainstream position as before, with a awareness of 80.2%. The awareness of Apple iOS was 11.9%, followed by slow growing Windows phone of 7.0%. Other OS shrunk in this month.

For numbers of CPU cores, the position of quad-core phones was more stable. In January quad-core smartphone won 55.5% awareness, followed by dual-core with over 30%. Eight-core/two quad-core phones had low awareness so far. ZDC predicted that awareness of eight-core phones wouldn’t increase rapidly in short term, as a consequence of high price and low experience improvement.

According to ZDC, smartphones with 4.6-5.0 inch screen were the most popular device, getting a 33.9% awareness. The awareness of 4.1-4.5 inch and 3.6-4.0 inch were very close: 16.3% and 16.5%. Note that smartphones with screen bigger than 5.5 inch had awareness of 15.4% this month.

Among more than 1,000 smartphones on the market, two cameras became the standard. For main camera – the rear camera, phones with 8-8.7 megapixel camera were the mainstream, with a 43.5% awareness. It’s remarkable that awareness of smartphones with over 10 megapixel camera grew fast, reaching 34.5% in January.

In terms of battery capacity, smartphone with 2,000-3,000 mAh battery was favored with a 48.9% awareness, almost the half. The second was below 2,000 mAh battery, with awareness of 32.5%. Affected by high price, smartphones with over 3,000 mAh battery was unpopular so far.

Case Study: Huawei

As ZDC data showed, the awareness of Huawei rocketed to 8.5% in a month, 2.1 points higher compared to December 2013. Huawei beat Nokia and Lenovo to become top 3 in January 2014. ZDC attributed this amazing performance to the increasing awareness of 3C, 3X and A199.

Huawei had 56 products on the market at present, mostly equipped with 4.5 inch or 5.0 inch screen. Each size accounted for over 20%. Huawei’s product with 5.0 inch screen was the most popular, with a 52.4% awareness. The awareness of products with 4.5 inch or 4.7 inch screen were both below 20%.

Conclusion

In January 2014, the strength of domestic brands in smartphone market was enhanced. At the same time, competition between domestic phone manufacturers was heating up. Under the market environment of homogenization, the more creative you are, the longer you will stand.

This is the part 1 of a series of posts that gives you insights on Chinese netizens behaviors from Sina Weibo. Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Sina Weibo launched its 2013 Weibo User Development Report on December 6, based on massive Weibo user accounts information and consumption behavior to offer enterprises effective data support in social media marketing.

According to CNNIC, the number of Chinese netizens reached 591 million, and mobile netizens accounted for 464 million. Sina Weibo was one of the most important social networks for Chinese netizens, and its users had been growing fast in recent years.

Generally speaking, female Weibo users equaled to male Weibo users. Male accounted for 50.1%, a little bit more than female users.

Post 90s had become the major Weibo user groups, accounted for 53%. In the past year, post 90s users grew significantly. Post 80s accounted for 37%. Weibo tended to attract young user groups.

17.4% of Weibo users were from community service industry, and many were from school, real estate and IT industries.

Most of Weibo users had high education backgrounds, 70.8% owned bachelor and above degrees.

By comparing user demographics from 2012 to 2013, Capricorn, Aquarius and Cancer users’ percentages all increased a little. Libra was still the largest Weibo user group in 2013.

Post 90s users grew from 37% in 2012 to 53%, replacing 80s to be the dominant Weibo user groups.

Most people would use Weibo client, with 76% of the total users. 29% people used web version Weibo.

And lots of people became active after 8am, Weibo online users hit several apexes between 12 to 13, 16 to 17 and 22 to 23 in a day.

Mobile payment developed quite fast as mobile netizens increased, by analyzing Weibo users, we found out that 88% of them had used mobile payment in daily life. Alipay was the most popular mobile payment method, and many would also use online banks apps. NFC mobile payment also occupied a part of mobile payment market.

80.68% used mobile payment while shopping online, besides, 20.53% used it to repay credit card.

Mobile payment Weibo users, android users were apparently higher than other groups, with 64.78%. Government, school and NGO user groups had the highest percentage in mobile payment usage, with 18.47%. And users between 18 to 28 years old were the active mobile payment user group.

Baidu published its third quarter mobile internet development report recently, according to the report, Android daily active users reached 270 million. Growth rate in 2013 slowed down, due to seasonal factors, Q3 quarterly growth rate climbed back to 13%.

Though android mobile phone sales kept growing, about half of its growth was from android users replacing their old devices.

By Q3 2013, android users from tier three and four cities and rural area accounted for 45% together, 10% higher than that of 2012. It means most of new users this year were from these area.

30% of the new daily active users in Q3 2013 were from rural area users and migrant workers, becoming a new driving force. College students android devices purchasing increased largely in Q3 because of a large number of freshmen, this trend would not continue in the last quarter.

Android users spent 46% of time connecting internet via Wi-Fi, 31% via 2G and 23% via 3G.

44% users spent more than 70% of their time using Wi-Fi.

In mobile search market, most of traffic were from 2G and 3G, Wi-Fi accounted for a small percentage of 38%. However, in online video market, Wi-Fi accounted for 80% of traffic.

In Q3 2012, 11% of users downloaded at least one app per day. And in Q3 2013, it grew to 15%.

Android users downloaded averagely 8.2 new apps monthly in Q3 2013, and the number increased to 10.2 in Q3 2013.

About 60% of users downloaded apps through mobile assistant app like 91, which was the main channel for getting apps online.

For offline app channels, 48% would copy other people’s installation apk and 44% would ask for help from mobile stores.

Only 7% of white collar and college students would get app offline, while the percentage in urban migrant workers and rural area users was 14% in Q3 2013.

The top 5 categories of mobile app installations is shown above, which were life and entertainment tools, social and communication, game and online video.

Affected by summer vacation, app downloads in Q3 was a little different. Game ranked top with 7.7 apps per user, followed by online video with 4.4.

The top 5 internet companies in regards of average app installations per user were Tencent, Baidu, Sohu, Sina and Xiaomi. Android users each averagely installed 3.6 Tencent apps.

Also affected by high student activity in summer vacation, android users daily average usage time reached 160 mins/day peak in August, it dropped a little in September 2013. It increased 17% compared to Q3 2012.

Android users averagely checked their mobile 53 times per day, the frequency was extremely high in the afternoon. For example, between 2pm to 5pm, users checked about 11 times in Q3 2013.

Social and communication apps had high using frequency and user accounts, relatively, it had high Daily Active User (DAU). Life and entertainment apps ranked the second. Thought it neither had high using frequency nor user accounts, it had a large number of apps in this category. Search engine and game had high growth rate in the categories with over 100 million DAU.

By Q3 2013, two android apps surpassed 100 million DAU and four surpassed 50 million DAU. Top 10 apps were mainly social and communication apps, input and mobile entrance apps like search engine and browser.

Deducted overlapping users, Tencent and Baidu both surpassed 150 million DAU in Q3 2013. For example, if one uses Baidu input and Baidu video in the same day, it will only be counted once.

Compared to Q3 2012, the total apps installed increased 17 in 2013, however, the apps used daily decreased by 1.3 in Q3 2013. This indicated that the competition in mobile app market would be even more intense.

Games ranked the top in uninstall rate with 28%, because of its short product life circle and many competitors. Life and entertainment tools were low frequency apps, most users uninstalled them after using only once. These kinds of apps were more suitable as light apps, with low uninstall rate of browsers and search engines.

In Q3 2013, Baidu mobile search DAU reached 130 million, 36% used every day.

In Q3 2013, search queries for life services and education both increased by 3.5% compared to 2012, while search queries for book and documents decreased by 2.7%.

Compared to normal mobile Baidu users, those who subscribed to light apps showed high using time and frequency. It proved that light apps could bring better user experience and satisfy consumers needs for instant search.

In November 2013, according to ZDC report, Chinese smartphone market brand awareness basically didn’t change. iPhone 5S ranked the top in product awareness, LG Nexus 5 gained product awareness rapidly and soon ranked in top 10 list. On the whole, the competition grew more intense in smartphone market, especially in android OS market.

Brand Awareness

Samsung ranked top in brand awareness ranking in November with 21.8%, Apple ranked the second with 12.6%. Lenovo remained in the third place with 7.8%. Compared to October, the top 7 brands kept stable, Samsung, Lenovo, Nokia and HTC went up a little while Apple dropped 0.2%. Huawei and Sony Ericsson remained the same with October. LG increased by five places in November because of LG Nexus 5 (16GB). Motorola and Vivo both increased by one place in the rank, while Xiaomi suffered the biggest drop in November.

Product Awareness

iPhone 5S gained 4.2% product awareness in November, ranking the top. Two Samsung smartphones ranked the second and third on the list. On the top 15 smartphones list, Apple was the biggest winner with four smartphones. Samsung had three smartphones on the top 15 list.

Chinese smartphone manufacturers together had 3 smartphones on the list, decreasing 1 compared to October. MX3 ranked the fourth, OPPO N1 and Vivo X3 ranked the 12th and 15th.

The top 15 smartphones were mainly quad-core phones, and 11 out of 15 had 4.5 inches screen size. 14 smartphones installed 8 million and above pixels camera.

Smartphones between 1,000 to 2,000 yuan (USD 163 to 327) gained the highest awareness of 24.4% in November 2013. Price range between 2,001 to 3,000 yuan (USD 327 to 490) awareness hit 20% in November, increasing about 2% monthly. Smartphones between 3,001 to 4,000 yuan (USD 490 to 654) had the largest increase of 6.3%, reaching 18.4%.

ZDC data showed that in November, the number of quad-core smartphones broke 400, gained 52.3% awareness. Single-core and dual-core smartphones’ awareness dropped slightly.

Smartphones with 12 million and above pixels’ awareness kept growing, reaching 28.5%. The rest all dropped in November.

Android’s awareness remained the same, iOS dropped by 0.2%. Notably, Windows Phone’s brand awareness increased by 0.7% to 7.7% in November 2013.

Smartphones with 5 inches and above screen size gained more awareness in November 2013, hitting 24.4%. 4.6-5.0 inches screen size had the highest awareness of 33.4%.

Case Study

In 2013, from January to November, LG brand awareness fluctuated between 2.3% to 2.8%, and the rank remained as 14 or 15. But because of new product LG Nexus 5 entering market in November, LG brand awareness went up to 4.3% and its rank improved to the eighth dramatically.

ZDC data showed that LG had 15 smartphones in the market, and LG Nexus 5 was the newest product and the official Android OS smartphone. From November 1 to 30, LG Nexus 5 brand awareness increased rapidly and remained high since 15th.

ZDC, which is ZOL Data Center, published a research on China netizen mobile app usage in 2013. By collecting 659 effective questionnaires out of 669 from ZOL website, ZDC released the key findings of their app usage report.

Key Findings

Chinese smartphone users surpassed 98%, during which about 60% were Android users.

Most users installed more than 20 apps, iOS users tended to install more apps.

80% smartphone users’ frequently used apps were below 10, 60% Android owners often used 5-10 apps. iOS had relatively high app usage frequency.

Most people downloaded apps from third-party app stores, iOS and Windows Phone users were more likely to download from app store of the system.

IM and SNS apps were the most popular apps, with 90% installation rate.

70% users hadn’t downloaded paid apps, Android users had the highest rate of not downloading paid apps.

Most users paid below 20 yuan (USD 3.26), Android users paid the least for apps.

Mobile users were inclined to pay for game apps.

Android users were most unlikely to pay for apps in the future, enough free apps became the main reason for not paying.

According to a research by Umeng, a localized Chinese mobile app analysis group offering analytical tools and services to app developers, active android devices in September didn’t change too much. Top 10 devices were all from Samsung and MIUI.

Total top 12 active android devices occupied 19.234% of the total in September 2013. Besides, the top 3 fastest growing devices in September were Huawei C8815, OPPO R823T, Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8.

And the active iOS devices are shown above. iPhone 4 ranked top with 28.5%.

According to ZDC report, Samsung occupied 21% market share of brands awareness, ranking the first in September 2013. Followed by Apple, with 14% share. Lenovo ranked the third, a little ahead of Nokia. 

Compared to August, Apple had a big growth, hitting 14%. Samsung, Nokia and Lenovo’s brands awareness all dropped in comparison with August.

Different price ranges had different brand awareness. Affected by Apple and Samsung’s high price smartphones, smartphone brands awareness above 3000 yuan (USD 490) reached 31.9%, 6.4% more than that of August. Brands awareness of  below 3000 yuan smartphones all dropped slightly.

In September, Android smartphones got a dominantly 78% brands awareness, but dropped a little in comparison with last month. iOS’s brands awareness increased to 14%, which led to the drop of android system’s brands awareness.

From the perspective of camera resolution, smartphones with 8/8.1 million pixels and 12 million and above pixels’ brands awareness kept going up, gained 51.9% and 24.2% in September.

In September, quad-core smartphones obtained most brands awareness, with 46.3%, decreasing 1.2% compared to August. Dual-core and eight-core smartphones brands awareness increased a little.

Large screen smartphones’ brands awareness remained fast growing rate. Though screen size between 4.6-5.0 inches had the highest share of 33.8% in September, it decreased by 2.8% compared with last month. However, 5.0 inches and above smartphones went up by 4.5%, reaching 17.2% in September. Besides, due to the launch of iPhone 5S and 5C with 4.0 inches screen size, 3.6-4.0 inches screen smartphone’s brands awareness grew by 4%.

ZDC, which is ZOL Data Center, released a report on Chinese netizen camera phone user behavior in 2013. This report was based on a survey on ZOL, it collected 1,260 responses and received 1,248 effective responses.

Key Findings:

• 95.4% Chinese netizen had mobile phones.
• 96.3% Chinese netizen had smartphones.
• Android users reached 70%, followed by iOS users
• Samsung occupied 19.1% market share by volume, followed by iPhone and HTC.
• Dual Camera phone users occupied 70% market share by volume, 8/8.1/8.7 million pixels users reached 40%.
• 90% interviewers said they used mobile phone to take photos in daily life. 59.7% would choose camera when travelling.
• Almost 60% said they would use mobile phone to take photos of people, while for scene, plant and animal, more people would use camera than mobile.
• The major reason for taking photos with mobile was because mobile could take photo anytime anywhere.
• High quality and high resolution was the main reason why people used camera.
• Most people use mobile to take photos three or four times a week.
• Interviewers ages were mainly between 26-35, with 40%. 20% of interviewers were students, and 60.1% of students were college students.

According to d.cn report, Samsung topped in total android devices sold in August 2013. Top 7 android devices were all Samsung. However, there were 4 Xiaomi devices that ranked in the top 20. Besides, Huawei and Meizu were also on the list.

Nexus 7 , a Google tablet, ranked the 20th, which showed users recognition of Google products. 

Jelly Bean, code name for android operating system version 4.1.x and 4.2.x, occupied the largest market share with 40.5% in August 2013. About 33.1% used version 2.3 and version 2.3.2.

According to Baidu Mobile Internet Report in Q2 2013, Android daily active users grew steadily though QoQ increase rate dropped down, and it might hit 300 million by the end of 2013. In Q2, the number of Android increased new users was about 20 million, with a 10% QoQ increase.

In Q2 2013, social and Instant Messenger apps still had the most downloads, with a 103% increase compared to Q4 2012. Other apps with high download times were video, game, music  and safety guard. Wechat ranked first on the download times list, followed by QVOD and Temple Run. Momo had the largest download growth rate, iQiyi and Popstar ranked the second and third.

Users spent most time on reader, social and IM and video apps, while search and LBS had the fastest growth rate.

Frequency of browser dropped a little, other apps frequency remained and grew slightly.

Reader was still the most popular search keyword, but it dropped a little in Q2 2013. Life service, tool service, online shopping, healthcare, education and game were the top search keywords with an obvious growth in Q2 2013.

55% big PC websites had transferred their website resources to mobile devices. Only 41% middle websites mobilized their resources.

Big websites had 14% mobile alone resources, and middle websites had 8% mobile alone resources.

LBS, search tools and education had relative low mobilization rate.

Kantar Worldpanel ComTech report showed that mobile manufacturers launched a series of big screen smartphones in the past 12 months. Samsung Galaxy and Note, HTC One, Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi all launched 4-inch smartphone. By the end of June, more than half of smartphone users owned 3 to 3.9 inches smartphones, but 4-4.5 inches smartphones market share was twice of last year, growing from 12.5% to 29.1%. Big screen smartphone might become the market dominant.

In Q2, Android smartphones market share by sales volume dropped to 67.8%, with a QoQ decrease of 4.1%. Windows phone market share by sales volume  increased from 1.8% in Q1 to 4.9% in Q2. iPhone occupied about 25% market share by sales volume.

By the end of June 2013, Android dominated smartphone with 56% market share, with 41% increase compared to last year. Symbian was the biggest loser, with only 20.3% market share and 14.3% less than last year. According to Kantar Worldpanel, if iphone launch cheaper smartphones, it will probably become the second largest mobile operating system.

iPhone 4 and 4s market share by sales volume reached 58.2%, while iPhone 5 only occupied one third of iPhone total sales.

According to DCCI research, the average number of apps installed by China Android users were 29.9. As the chart shown above, 27.76% installed 10-20 apps, followed by 20-30 with 22.02%.

72% users would both use PC and mobile to install app, while 25% said they only used mobile and 3% only used PC.

Third-party app store, mobile assistant and mobile browser recommendations were the three major means to download app via mobile devices in China. And as for PC, mobile assistant, third-party app store and browser recommendations were the three major means to download app.

35% China Android users downloaded app via third-party app store, followed by internet companies with 33%. And 19% would choose download offered by mobile manufacturers. Merely 6% would choose official app download, like Google play.

Wandoujia, like iTunes for Android, is China’s leading Android app store with over 170 million users. It was first launched in 2010, and its international version, SnapPea, was launched in June 2012.

Wandoujia’s CEO revealed to media that the number of Wandoujia users has been growing by 500 thousand per day, 50% of Android users growing per day. It said that users natural traffic is more than 50%, which means 250 thousand users per day have known Wandoujia before they installed it on their devices. Entering app search industry at the very beginning is the major reason for Wandoujia’s success.

And when Wandoujia updated its PC version, they decided to only display 6 app recommendations, much less than the same type of Android app stores, which proved to win user recognition.

By July 21, 2013, Wandoujia has up to 200 million mobile users. Some users say Wandoujia app is annoyingly too large and has too much functions, and lots of users don’t really like this app, but statistic result shows that Wandoujia is the most popular Android app store in China.

According to The State of Mobile Benchmark report released by Adobe in April, almost half of China mobile internet visits are from Android devices, compared to slightly over one third from iOS devices.

According to TNS, UC mobile leads mobile app facetime but is closely followed by Mobile QQ, WeChat and Weibo.

The top five smartphone apps in China were dominated by social networking and communication related apps.

According to Informa Telecoms & Media’s latest research, China has become its largest market with almost two-thirds of the handsets sold,and a third of the Android devices sold in 2012.

With a year-on-year growth of 85% in 2012, China is the fastest-growing smartphone market by far. And this growth is being driven by the explosive demand for Android phones. Sales in China of devices powered by this OS exceeded 50% penetration in the first half of 2012 and Informa estimates that two in every three handsets sold in China in 2012 are powered by Android.

Informa Telecoms & Media expects Android to consolidate its position further in the US. So one in every two handsets sold in the country in 2013 will be powered by them.

For 2012 Q2, tools, FMCG and e-commerce are the top 3 categories of advertisers advertising on mobile apps. As more and more advertisers in FMCG, automobile and games step onto this channel, advertisers of content publishers and games are more eager. Mobile app ad revenue reaches 1.06 billion yuan (USD 169 million) in total.

Domob daily average advertisement PV and UV grow steadily

Q2, domob daily average advertisement PV is up to 0.36 billion and the number of daily UV reaches 18 million.

Android and iOS remain as front runners with 60% and 40% of impressions.

Comparing with Q1, Domob advertising impression on Android grows rapidly. The proportion of impression on Android and iOS devices is 60%, 40%; and impressions of other systems continually decrease.

Tools, E-Commerce and FMCG are the Top3 Advertisers

In the second quarter, advertisers of tools, e-commerce and FMCG fill out the top ranks on Domob, accounting for 55%. As for the CTR comparison, Games advertisement gets 1.87% CTR, outclassing other industries.

FMCG, automobile, and games have a steady lift in ad delivery on Domob.

In Q2, the number of e-commerce advertisers decreases. The main reason is its slow YoY growth in transactions. And some e-commerce clients reduce Smartphone advertisement delivery, resulting in the decrease of the ad delivery proportion. On the other hand, games advertisers increase their ad delivery proportion rapidly. Moreover, FMCG and Automobile advertisers have a lift in the branding advertisement.

Advertisers of Content Publisher and Games More Willing to Invest

Content publishers, games and online video have the highest Ad delivery. CTRs of digital content and games stay on the leading position. According to iResearch analysis, among all current apps, digital content and games both belong to the categories of which users are willing to stay a long time.

The Revenue of China Mobile App Ad Platform Keeps Increasing Rapidly

In the second quarter of 2012, China Mobile App ad platform’s revenue is 1.06 billion yuan, up by 135.6% compared with that in 2011. The performance mainly comes from the growth of impressions, advertisers and average ad input. Under the influence of macro-economy, the bursting point of Mobile App advertising will delay to 2013.

Tencent launched an apps search engine for Android, “Haina“. It also includes a page for a list of the top android apps.

Smartphone shipments in China grew 164% year over year to 33.1 million units in the June quarter, topping the 25 million units sold in the U.S. according to Needham & Company.