Is China the largest mobile app market already in 2012?

The advertising and analytical company Flurry has discovered that the Chinese mobile app market is the second largest in the world. A year ago, he was the tenth. Moreover, according to some indicators, it is already ahead of the “number one” – the American market. 

One of these indicators is the number of new activations. Last February, China overtook the United States for the first time in the number of total monthly activations of iOS and Android devices. It accounted for 23% of global downloads, while the US accounted for “only” 22%. In March, the situation, according to analysts’ calculations, will only worsen: China will account for 24% of activations, and the United States – 21%. A little over a year ago – in January 2011 – China had only 8%. In general, in short, at the moment the Chinese mobile market is the fastest growing in the world. 

And although there are twice as many active devices in the USA as in China, this is a difference, if the growth in the number of activations in the Middle Kingdom continues, it may not only greatly decrease, but even disappear altogether. So China may well become the world’s largest mobile market by the end of 2012. 

By the way, in the first quarter of 2012, the Chinese were 1126% more likely to launch applications on mobile devices compared to the same period last year. What is especially curious is that the number of sessions in Russia has also jumped by a solid amount – by 514% (a session means launching an application and working with it for at least two minutes). Be that as it may, China is also in the first place in terms of the growth rate of the number of sessions. 

However, in terms of the number of sessions as such, the US is still ahead. It accounts for 46% of global app launches. This is 10% less than last year, despite the fact that the number of sessions in the US has doubled over the past year. In other words, although the American market is growing very fast, other markets are growing even faster.

A source: http://blog.flurry.com