Apple is finally registering growth of app downloads in Asia with China leading the charge, followed by Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The number of downloads registered in China is only next to US.
India has registered a growth of + 27 percent since December,2010. These percentages don’t show the success of iPhone 4 which got released recently. It shows only the growth of app store which also includes the number of apps downloaded from iPod and iPad.
The revenue earned by developers is not great in comparison to the market of US with Asia contributing just two-third, the percentage of US. See the chart below. The most downloaded category is games. Developers have to seek a better revenue generating mechanism in Asia, either by displaying ads or some other way.
The popularity of regional localized apps in India is very less, may be owing to a English concentric usage population. On the other side, localization appears to be key to becoming popular especially when considering countries like China, South Korea, and Japan.
This study comes from a new report published by Distimo. The study also found remarkable number of downloads from South Korea, despite being a country with small population.
