Cracking the Chinese app market

China! The word conjures up an interesting concoction of images:the Great Wall, Tai Chi, worlds manufacturing hub, burgeoning market of eager consumers an intriguing past and promising future. With more than 1 billion mobile subscribers, it is this immense opportunity that the Chinese mobile market represents that attracts hundreds of mobile developers looking to launch and grow revenues in China. It would be an understatement to say that this market is complex. For starters, the Google Play market ds not exist! Users typically download apps from other alternative localised app stores, some of the most sought after being: AppChina, Gfan and Hiapk. Operator app stores run by ChinTelecom (Tianyi) and ChinMobile (MobileMarket) are also popular options for app downloads. This significantly complicates app distribution in the country. Cracking the right distribution channel is absolutely critical to acquiring quality users in China. secret sauce, which most successful global developers in Chinwould vouch for is localisation. Developers need to ensure that their app is localised to have Chinese flavour to give it fair chance to fly. It would be wise to not just translate the app in Chinese but also to use localised Chinese characters or Avatars or even socialize the game vipartnerships with local social networking sites like Renren. Take Halfbrick Studios popular app Fruit Ninjfor instance. In September last year, Halfbrick introduced Chinese version of their app complete with China-themed fruits and blades and with background images of twelve zodiac animals that stem from traditional Chinese culture. And according to this report, in just 3 months, Fruit Ninjas Chinese edition reached 40 million downloads, and racked up $6 million in sales! Chinese users are also notorious for their thriftiness and this reflects in the miniscule market for paid apps. Developers increasingly look to ad-based monetization models to establish an economically viable monetization solution for their apps. With more than 70 odd competing ad-networks in the country, it becomes critical for app developers to choose reliable partner for monetization based on delivered performance, scale and reach. InMobi recognizes the opportunity as well as the challenges that this unique market represents. Our global presence, scale and relentless focus on serving developers make it imperative for us to make our presence felt in China. InMobi Developer Program in ChinJin Guang DDao (which translates to Golden Avenue) was recently launched at the Mobile Game Summit held in Beijing on 21^st June. The program is open to all app developers based in China. With compelling rev-share, this program would excite every developer in Chinlooking for true partner for their monetization solutions. You could reach out to us viQQ: 1283456119 to find out more about this opportunity. InMobi has offices both in Beijing and Shanghai and dedicated sales force to serve developers. For advertising and monetizing solutions, please write to sales-team@inmobi.com and our team will reach out to you.