China Makes Up 18% of App Store Downloads, 3% Revenue

While Apple products may be a money machine in China, the App Store is another story. Stenvall-Skoeld and Company has reported that while 14 percent of App Store downloads come from China, only 3 percent of App Store revenue does. This is an extremely small chunk of revenue when compared to the 42 percent of revenue that comes from the United States, which makes up 28 percent of downloads. However, this isn’t all bad news as Apple’s Chinese App Store grew to $37 million in revenue last quarter, a 105 percent increase from the previous quarter. Analysts are reporting that we should see this revenue rise 98 percent by the end of the year to $171 million in revenue.

So, why is Apple’s Chinese App Store revenue so small? Simple, Chinese users seem to be downloading a ton of free apps. TheNextWeb also reports that a lot of Chinese iPhone users tend to pirate apps via jailbreak solutions. In fact, more than 40 percent of all iPhones in China are jailbroken. One developer even tweeted that almost all the pirated versions of his apps in use are in China. However, Apple is still selling more paid apps than Google as the Chinese Google Play store is yet to support paid applications.

Source: Stenvall-Skoeld and Company via TheNextWeb
Image Credit: TheNextWeb

Andrew is a geek, Apple enthusiast, blogger and coffee lover from Chicago.