Mobile use in China is increasingly an exceptional rate as the country’s registered app store users topped 100 million in the second quarter of the year. Figures released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have shown an increase of 257% year-on-year in the amount of registered app store users. This is in addition to the amount of mobile payments users rising by an equally staggering 195% over the same period. Broadband Internet subscribers also grew by 24% to 140m with 3G users also numbering some 80m+.
The news comes after earlier this month we reported that China had become second only to the USA when it came app downloads. Distimo’s report said app downloads “grew significantly” in Asia and all this will be of much encouragement to the burgeoning mobile gambling industry. It means that a tenth of mobile users in China are registered to an App store and Apple could be benefiting most from this.
Reuters reports that a deal for China Mobile and China Telecom to start offering the iPhone would typically subsidize the handset to consumers in deals that would mean Apple is “the biggest winner.” Their current share of the market in China is 9%, according to Gartner.
More food-for-thought comes with the news that mobile subscribers are set to hit 1billion. Wireless Intelligence estimates put China as the world leader in terms of market size and this is set to surpass a billion by May 2012. There are currently 920 million mobile subscribers in the country and with the market growing at this rate, Apple, Android and the rest will be foaming at the mouth.
