Chinese apps are on their way to become a $2.59 trillion industry in the near future, market research company App Annie said on Monday, with its forecast being part of its first in-depth app usage metrics in the Far Eastern country. By extending its app tracking platform to Android apps in China, App Annie is hoping to deliver a unique and comprehensive solution for marketers and other industry experts targeting the country, the company said, adding that its service has already been tracking iOS offerings in China for some time now.
As of today, App Annie’s clients have access to six new China-specific Android metrics spanning over 5,000 of the most popular apps in the country, with these categories including usage penetration, cross-app usage, and mobile data usage. Likewise, the platform now also tracks the number of active app users on both a weekly and monthly basis, related sessions and their durations, as well as a percentage of apps’ active days over any given period. App Annie’s latest metrics suggest that four out of five of the most globally played mobile games in August were Chinese titles, with only Candy Crush Saga from Activision Blizzard-owned King placing fourth on the firm’s list. The currently most popular mobile game on the planet is Tencent’s Honour of Kings, followed by Anypop from Happy Elements. Clash of Clans was the third most popular game in the world last month, with this title being made by Tencent-owned Supercell whose Clash Royale placed fifth on the same list.
App Annie found that the Chinese app economy was worth $790 billion last year, which is how much the company estimates Chinese marketers and consumers paid on in-app purchases and advertising in 2016. While iOS is a relevant platform in the Far Eastern country, it still cannot compare to Android whose install base is approximately six times larger, with devices running Google’s open-source operating system hence being more important to the domestic app economy. China is understood to be an important contributor to another major forecast made by App Annie earlier this year, with the company claiming that global app usage will reach 3.5 trillion hours four years from now, driving countless in-app purchases and related advertising revenue, and additionally strengthening the world’s app economy in the process of doing so. Being the largest smartphone market in the world, the vast majority of industry watchers also expect China to be a major factor in the growth of the global app economy going forward, though it remains to be seen to what degree will the Far Eastern country continue driving the massive success of mobile software in the coming years.
