China is booming, really amazingly. App Annie, an app consultancy, has reported that “China now accounts for $1 of every $4 generated globally across app stores, in-app advertisements and mobile e-commerce”. If that is the case, Lagos entrepreneurs may begin to adjust their strategies. We typically make for U.S. market since no one buys apps in Africa. Maybe, focusing on China could unlock more opportunities. Sure, it would be really challenging but that is what entrepreneurs are created to figure out. We need to think China because the alpha is there right now.
With the largest internet population and smartphone market in the world, China also the biggest app economy, according to recent estimates from analytics company App Annie.
It said China accounts for US$1 out of every US$4 generated globally across app stores, in-app advertisements and mobile e-commerce.
In the fourth quarter of last year, app users in China also spent more than 200 billion hours in apps. App Annie said that was more than 4.5 times the next largest market, India
From app to semiconductors, China has another win: the news is that Apple is in talks to start buying memory chips from Yangtze Memory Technologies, a Chinese chip maker. I do not know how Intel would feel. Because if YMT has gotten really good for Apple to consider it, it is then evident that YMT is now ready to cause dislocation in the global chip business. Chinese government has been pumping money into semiconductors. And Apple has come with a great seal of approval.
Just to show you how special Chinese citizens are emerging, Heathrow Airport is playing a vapor game with them: “Chinese travellers were asked to pay a minimum spend of £1,000 ($1,381) to receive a 20% discount, while other shoppers paid £250 to receive the same offer”.
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Heathrow Airport have said a duty free discount event run by its commercial partner World Duty Free which offered different rates to Chinese and non-Chinese customers at the weekend was “unacceptable”.
Chinese travellers were asked to pay a minimum spend of £1,000 ($1,381) to receive a 20% discount, while other shoppers paid £250 to receive the same offer.
Users on China’s social media platform Weibo shared their outrage after the policy was revealed on a blog viewed over 10 million times, and one person posted a picture of a flyer, in Chinese, offering the discount to tourists spending over £1,000
What a nation – built by men and women.
Comment from LinkedIn
China is a practical example for the saying that “the bigger, the better”. It’s a country that is very huge, not just in quantity, but also in quality. Nigeria is barely 200 million (we don’t even know the figures), but many a times it conveys the feeling that we are overpopulated, and therefore it’s ‘impossible’ to provide resources and necessary infrastructures to take care of the ‘teeming’ population. We don’t seem to know how to get things done!
Well, if developing apps for Chinese consumers would make some of our local developers see alpha, I think is something they must give a go. Even if it requires coding in Chinese, they still have to try it out. We have more sellers than buyers in the land, that’s why everything seems to be in stasis; no disposable income
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Hi, how do we build for the Chinese market when we don’t understand their language?
You do not need to know the language. You can make an app today and launch it in 40 languages. There are solutions for such. For the Chinese one, you favor it. For example, when I send proposals to Northern Nigeria, I use say Kano as an example. In the easy, I can use Aba. You would also understand the culture. Language is not a big issue.