China ‘to become biggest app market by 2013’

China app session growth on iOS and Android was up 870 per cent for the January to October period this year, a mobile analytics firm has claimed.

Flurry said overall app session market share for the country now stands at 7.3 per cent, up from 1.8 per cent at the start of the year.

The US remained top with a 47 per cent share of the market, but this had declined from January results.

The report states that if current trends continue, China could overtake the U.S. by the end of 2013, with both countries converging around 23 per cent app session-share.

Downloads of new apps in the country grew by slightly to 12 per cent, but this was still way behind the US which accounted for 57 per cent of new app downloads across iOS and Android.

The Flurry report summed up the findings stating: “As one of the fastest modernising and largest countries in the world, the adoption of mobile apps in China is unprecedented.”

“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.”

The research was carried out through the 120,000 apps that are tracked by Flurry Analytics, which the firm claims accounts for 20 billion mobile app sessions.

Last week China’s Ministry of Industry announced that the country had more than 950 million mobile users, the most in the world.