Could Hong Kong be the key to unlocking the greater China app market?

This article originally appeared on the Metaps Blog. It has been modified slightly for style.

Founded by Katsuaki Sato, Metaps is a Japanese company which specializes in maximizing app downloads and monetization. The firm also offers an online payment service, called Spike.

Hong Kong has a population of only seven million people, on an area of only 650 square miles. Despite its limited size, Hong Kong is an app market with influence on mainland China, and is a particularly effective starting point for developers planning to expand into Asia.

Hong Kong market linked closely with Taiwan

Hong Kong is located only 500 miles from Taiwan, and the two regions share many similarities. In the case of the app market, the fact that Hong Kong and Taiwan share traditional Chinese as a common language is the most important factor.

The Hong Kong market plays an important role in the greater China region that goes beyond the top grossing performance of apps within Hong Kong itself. Given the similarities between the app markets of Hong Kong and Taiwan (the number five Google Play market in the world in terms of revenue), the two markets can be a very effective entry point for developers looking to break into and/or across Asia.

To demonstrate the similarities between the app markets of Hong Kong and Taiwan, we calculated the top performing categories on the Google Play top grossing charts for both markets, for the month of October. Hong Kong and Taiwan share the identical top five grossing categories. In a Metaps report on the Taiwan market, we indicated that due to similarities between the Taiwan and Japan Google Play charts, Taiwan offers a cost effective way of test marketing potential success in Japan. The same can also be said for Hong Kong.

Chinese developers are strong in Hong Kong

Google Play does not exist in mainland China, so Android developers in China have an inherent need to take their apps to other regions. Hong Kong is one of the first options for developers in Greater China, and many are currently thriving.