Nokia doesn't get that much coverage of its app platform - the Ovi Store - in the media, but in 2010 Nokia's app store was far and away the leader in China: it was accessed by 65.2% of Chinese mobile subscribers, towering over Apple's and Google's more fancied offerings.
China's second most used app store was China Mobile's "Mmarket", accessed by 57.7% of the country's mobile users (note the cross-over: some users are using multiple app sources) in 2010. Google's official Market for Android phone was a distant third,with 13.7%; Microsoft's legacy MarketPlace was fourth; Apple's iconic App Store was fifth.
These stats (see the full graph, below) come from iReport, a China-focused "customer behavior" and markets firm of analysts - in a year-ending report on mobile app usage in China in 2010. They're a useful reminder that - and this is my analysis now - Chinese consumers engage with their mobiles, and the mobile internet, quite differently than in the US, with more of an emphasis here on text-messaging, using pre-installed apps and games, instant-messaging (eg: QQ), and mobile internet - but that's mostly via GPRS, with 3G only adopted by a minority.
While it's good news for Nokia and its Ovi Store, it does also portend the difficulties ahead, if consumers start to move away from lower-end smartphones (the ones that are more like "feature-phones" that can just about support some apps).
And while Android's share looks tiny, with the Google Market in a far-off 3rd-place, actually you could add a great deal of the (China Unicom) WoStore and (Motorola) MotoPlus store percentages to that, since most of their app sales are actually of Android apps... But that's closer to the theme of my next planned post. 'Til then: well done, Nokia.
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