Apps analytics firm Flurry noted a shifting balance in the geographic distribution of the app sessions it tracks, with growth in other regions outpacing that in the current largest market, the US. China has moved into number two spot, after a period of “hyper-growth” that has seen it moving up from 10th place in 2011.
In a blog post, the company noted that “for app developers, who more traditionally look at North America and Europe, China is a market too compelling to ignore. A new market has emerged, and China is the new mobile app dragon.”
While the absolute number of iOS and Android sessions it tracked in the US market doubled between January and October 2011, its share of total sessions decreased to 47 percent from 55 percent.
In contrast, the balance of the top 10 countries – UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China – saw a 2.7 times collective increase in sessions, increasing their share of the total to 31 percent from 28 percent.
The rest of the total comes from the “others” group, which Flurry says includes 217 more countries where it tracks sessions. This block has seen its share of the market increase to 22 percent from 17 percent.
Flurry highlighted that China saw sharp growth, with session numbers increasing by 870 percent in the January–October 2011 period. This was ahead of the not unimpressive 570 percent seen for Argentina, and 427 percent growth for Israel.
The company said that China is delivering “astronomical” growth, “spurred by a massive population voraciously adopting applications.” It is currently the second biggest app market after the US, having overtaken the UK in recent months to achieve this position.
Most impressively, China started the year in tenth place, climbing to fifth by April. If both China and the US continue their current growth paths, China could overtake its rival by the end of 2013, with both having around 23 percent share of the app market.
In addition to its growing usage, China is also becoming an increasingly important market for new app downloads – its share of the market has increased from 1.2 percent to 12 percent during the course of 2011.
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