Report Shows China, Japan Have Appetite For Own Apps

GREE model poses with Android Infobar phone, Tokyo Game Show 2011

A new report from research firm Distimo shows that countries around the world vary greatly in their preference for apps, specifically on how countries prefer local apps (or, in the context of the study, ones published in only one country).

To explain it in another way, lets consider what Distimo says about the US. The country’s most popular applications are similar to those preferred elsewhere, and that “only 19 percent of the most popular apps in the Apple App Store in the US are popular in the US only.” Essentially this suggests that US tastes for apps are not dissimilar with the tastes of the world as a whole.

But Asia is a different story. 67 percent of the most popular iOS apps in Japan are popular only in that country. Likewise, in China 56 percent of popular iOS apps are popular only in China. In the chart below, you can see that for the Apple App Store, the Android Market, and the Ovi Store, Japan and China lead the way as the two nations with the most locally popular apps per store.* Note that there is no data available for China and Japan regarding Windows Phone 7.

Similarly, looking at which countries prefer the same apps as the US, Japan and China overlap the least with American tastes. Not surprisingly, it is other English speaking countries like Canada, Australia, and the UK which overlap the most. China does share preferences with Hong Kong and Singapore, however, with an ‘average overlap’ of 25 percent.

For more information, be sure to check out Distimo’s full report.

*Note that Distimo did not include South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil in its analysis, explaining “countries do not have any games in the Apple App Store, and would distort the findings of this study if included.”