while google play and apple app store dominate the mobile app market in the west, the china market makes it more difficult for western companies and brands to compete. Here’s what you need to know about major app stores to publish a mobile app or game in China.
The landscape of mobile app stores in China is different from the western one for two reasons:
- strict government control due to censorship and other laws
- rapid and widespread adoption of mobile technology, driven by local companies and homegrown software untethered from mainstream western corporations.
In order to comply with Chinese licensing laws, Apple has a different version of the Apple App Store available in China for iPhone users. App and game publishers and developers must release their apps on both versions of the Apple App Store to reach the entire world market.
These are the main app stores android developers should know about if they want to launch and market their app in china:
top 15 chinese app stores
1. Huawei App Market Store (华为应用市场): Huawei is a large company that manufactures telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics. In recent years, Huawei mobile phones have become one of the best-selling phones around the world, and it is one of the best-selling phone brands in mainland China. Huawei is also making headlines for its innovative 5G network technology that is being rolled out all over the world. Huawei also founded Huawei Cloud in 2011 and is now the third largest cloud provider in China.
mau: 421,788,000
market share: 44.31%
2. oppo software store (oppo软件商店) – oppo (formerly owned by bbk electronics) is a Chinese consumer electronics and mobile communications company with products popular as smartphones oppo’s app store has recently gained popularity. with about 210 million active users per month.
mau: 187,432,000
market share: 19.69%
3. vivo app store (vivo应用商店) – vivo is a Chinese consumer electronics company that manufactures smartphones, accessories, software and provides services in line. Its parent company is BBK Electronics, which also owns Oppo, which makes its own brands of smartphones. vivo app store is the default store installed on all vivo phones sold in china.
mau: 163,938,000
market share: 17.22%
4. tencent mi app store (应用宝): tencent is the largest internet company in asia, publisher of the popular wechat application used in everywhere in china. Although the company does not produce any mobile phones, its app store has remained one of the most popular in China for many years.
mau: 156,006,000
market share: 16.39%
5. miui app store (小米应用商店): xiaomi is a very popular Chinese electronics company with products including smartphones, mobile apps, laptops and home appliances. your app store is the default app store installed on your phone in all of china. Xiaomi mobile phones come with their own Android firmware (MIUI), based on Google’s Android operating system.
mau: 97,782,000
market share: 10.27%
6. baidu mobile assistant (百度手机助手): Even before google left the Chinese market in 2010, baidu had been the largest search engine from the country. It remains the dominant player to this day, which is why it is often referred to as “the Google of China”. baidu app store, baidu’s mobile assistant, is always presented as an option when users search for an app on baidu.com.
mau: 69,203,000
market share: 7.27%
7. 360 Mobile Assistant (360手机助手): 360 Mobile Assistant is a Chinese app store from qihoo 360, a Chinese internet security company with products that include antivirus software. and a popular secure web browser used by millions in china.
mau: 65,660,000
market share: 6.90%
8. Samsung App Store (三星应用商店): Samsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational manufacturer of smartphones, televisions, semiconductors, and other consumer electronics. home. Its flagship series of smartphones is the Galaxy series, and the Samsung App Store comes pre-installed on all Samsung smartphones. In 2019, Samsung announced that it would stop manufacturing mobile phones in China due to lack of demand.
mau: 52,592,000
market share: 5.53%
9. wandoujia (豌豆荚): wandoujia was founded in 2009 by a former employee of google china and a telecommunications engineer. It was the fifth largest Android app store in China when it was bought by Alibaba in 2016. The company developed a media marketplace as an alternative to streaming large amounts of data that allows users to search for videos on multiple platforms, download them locally, and compress them. .
mau: 13,202,000
market share: 1.39%
10. pp assistant (pp助手): alibaba app store in china is pp assistant. In addition to Android apps, PP Assistant also has two iOS app stores, including one for iOS devices that have been “jailbroken”.
mau: 13,068,000
market share: 3.11%
11. Lenovo LeStore (联想乐商店) – Lenovo is a Chinese multinational company, founded in 1984 and headquartered in Beijing. By 2019, it was the world’s largest computer supplier by unit sales, but also develops storage devices, IT management software, smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs running the Android operating system. lenovo le store is pre-installed on many of your devices, including smart tvs.
mau: 8,423,000
market share: 0.88%
official website: http://www.lenovomm.com
12. anzhi market (安智市场) – anzhi market is a Chinese app store that has been around for many years. has an active community that allows members to discuss and rate android apps.
mau: 5,184,000
market share: 0.54%
13. coolpad (酷派应用商店): The coolpad group was founded in 1993 and was previously known as china wireless technologies limited. Originally a manufacturer of pagers and paging systems, it began manufacturing mobile phones in 2002. The company is headquartered in Shenzhen. its penetration of the Chinese market has declined substantially in recent years as it has faced heavy losses and a series of ownership changes. the coolpad app store comes pre-installed on your devices.
mau: 4,486,000
market share: 0.47%
14. zte app store (中兴应用商店) – zte was founded in 1985 in shenzhen, china, and is one of China’s leading telecommunications equipment manufacturers. zte now has a strong international presence, with subsidiaries around the world. They manufacture mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, and OEM hardware and software. It is one of the top five mobile phone manufacturers in China. zte app store comes pre-installed on your smartphones in china.
mau: 4,133,000
market share: 0.43%
15. china telecom 189 store (天翼空间客户端) – also known as tianyi space, 189 store is china’s official mobile phone application store telecom, which is one of the publicly traded spin-off companies of the state-owned Chinese telecommunications corporation. It started its expansion to the Asian and European regions in 2008. 189 stores were established in 2014.
mau: 2,333,000
market share: 0.25%
other Chinese app stores
here are some additional app stores that often rank high in our official appinchina app store index:
- sogou mobile assistant (搜狗手机助手)
- appchina (应用汇)
- letv store (乐视应用商店)
- meizu flyme (魅族应用商店)
- china mobile mm store (mm应用商场)
- coolapk (酷安/酷市场)
- himarket (安卓市场)
- gionee (金立软件商店)
- zhuoyi (卓易市场)
For the latest detailed statistics, please visit the full appinchina app store index.