There are over a billion internet users in China, so you’d think Chinese developers would have no need to break into foreign markets, since they can easily find a large domestic audience. Despite this, many Chinese publishers are indeed focused on foreign markets and have been successful outside of China in countries such as the US.
Thanks to research conducted with the analytics service AppMagic, we’ve identified the five most-downloaded Chinese apps in the United States. To maintain the purity of the experiment, we didn’t include apps from major marketplaces (Alibaba) or social networks (TikTok).
Number five on the list is an app from Glority Global Group Ltd. that identifies the value of coins. This program uses AI to generate an image of a coin based on information in its database and provides the user with all the information it has about it, including its country of origin, the year it was minted, and much more. This information lets collectors find out how much coins are worth and decide whether to buy or sell them. The app is easy to use — just take a picture of the coin or use a photo from the gallery.
CoinSnap came out recently, in September 2022, but as of December 2022 it has already earned its developers $249,000, most of which ($230,000) was in a single month. It is actively downloaded in the US (86%), the UK (5%), and Australia (4%). Chinese users aren’t even in the top five.
Next up is a mobile video editor from Bytedance Pte. Ltd. It has all the functionality you’d expect, and a whole lot more — users can edit videos, superimpose text and stickers, add music, apply various filters, animate key frames or slow them down, stabilize video, and even use chroma key compositing.
The app was released in 2022, and its developers have earned $292,000 in just a few months. Americans come in third in terms of downloads and have provided the developers with the largest share of their revenue, spending $75,500 on the program’s paid functions — 26% of CapCut’s total revenue. But Chinese users have almost no interest in the video editor.
Third on the list is another app from Glority Global Group Ltd. PictureThis can identify a plant’s species based on a photograph, tell the user how to care for it, identify ailments, and even offer an individualized expert consultation. According to the publisher, the app identifies over a million plants every day and is 98% accurate. Its main audience is in the US — Americans account for 26% of downloads (26 million) and 61% of revenue ($96.7 million). China comes in third in terms of downloads (9%).
The runner-up is Daily Yoga from Daily Yoga Culture Technology Co., Ltd. As its name implies, it’s a yoga platform. Despite the fact that most of its users are in China (29%), the bulk of its revenue comes from Americans ($39%, or $11.3 million). The US comes in second in terms of downloads (21%, or 8 million). The app was released way back in 2012, and it has won several American awards over the last decade, including “Best Yoga App” and “5 Addictive Fitness Apps” from The Wall Street Journal.
Number one on our list is another identifier app from Glority Global Group Ltd. Rock Identifier allows users to identify rocks and study the geology of their local environment using photos. Americans have downloaded it 3.8 million times, accounting for 49% of all downloads. They have also spent $4.98 million on its paid functions. According to our data, the US comes in first. China isn’t even in the top ten.
You can find more information about other apps from Chinese publishers on AppMagic.
As we’ve seen, an app can sometimes be unpopular in its domestic market, but still make a splash in another country. Publishers who want to make it big need to research foreign audiences, choose the market that’s right for their product, and localize their app based on that market’s unique characteristics. The experts at Logrus IT are always ready to help with this.
