Chinese Smartphone Apps Apparently Dominating Indian Google Play Store As Well

The Indian smartphone buyers ecosystem that has welcomed Chinese smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, OnePlus, Oppo, and more with open arms, is said to have welcomed even Chinese apps on the Google Play Store wholeheartedly in 2018. The number of Chinese apps swelled and is said to have dominated Indian smartphone users in the last year.

As per a Factor Daily research, there were a staggering 44 China-originated applications out of the top 100 apps; indicative of the Google Playstore rankings in 2018 concerning India. This is seemingly in streak contrast when compared to 2017 where there were apparently only 17 Chinese-origin apps out of the top 100 apps.

The top Chinese apps, as per the Factor Daily research report, include the likes of PUBG Mobile, ShHAREit, CamScanner, Clash of Kings, TikTok, and BeautyPlus. These apps undoubtedly enjoy comparatively increased downloads and relatively large user database.

Here, a notable fact is the new way of content consumption in India which is now the new trend. Now, this is the rise of demand for non-English Indian content. With increased penetration of smartphones in India; and to an extent feature phones as well (led by Reliance Jio’s JioPhone range of LTE-enabled handsets) in even the tier-2, tier-3, and rural regions in the country, the demand for apps offering content in the respective non-English language is naturally on the rise. Chinese apps such as SHAREit (and more), have been increasingly targeting the non-English base in India; hence, this could have potentially contributed to an increase in popularity of the China-developed apps in India.

Also, PUBG Mobile has also reportedly turned out to be popular in India; with the game topping the most downloaded Google Play games list in 2018. PUBG Mobile also made rapid gains in the Apple App Store and was rated as being amongst the top games in the repository during 2018.

Now, with Chinese app developers (with their apps) reportedly popular on Google Play in India, the app repository could also potentially witness disruption from the Chinese scheme of things; similar to the Indian smartphone ecosystem.

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