A study covering the Apple App Store for iPhone conducted in the month of May 2011 by Distimo Publication has come up with new revelations. It reveals that app downloads from the App store for iPhone in Asian countries has been on a steady rise. Asian nations such as China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam are among the countries that were studied.
The study reveals that China has emerged as the second largest market for the iPhone app store after the U.S. The growth in the bulk of downloads from Asian countries has occurred especially in the last six months. On the other hand, during the same time, western countries have registered a slump in the download volume. It was discovered that content preferences were almost similar between Asia and USA when it came to popular categories of downloads, making it easier for iPhone developers to present the same apps in both continents.
According to the study, the main component for the popularity of the apps, specifically in countries such as Japan, China and South Korea, was localization. Nevertheless in India and Indonesia it didn’t matter much. In spite of its size and small population, South Korea downloads content at a higher rate than most other countries. The games category all over the world is the largest one, but since South Korea doesn’t have this category, all downloads are for non game categories.
Although Asia seems to be on a download spree, when it comes to overall revenue and paid downloads, the continent is still behind Europe and USA. Most customers in Asian countries would rather use free apps than shell out a few dollars for the ad-free versions. Thus while such purchases are rampant in western countries, it’s not yet become a trend in Asian nations. This ought to compel the developers to consider different ways of gaining revenue, such as advertising.