War of the operating systems

Industry veteran banks on Android platform to drive demand for mobile Internet applications in China

After spending many years shaping the fortunes of high-tech giants in China, Luo Chuan is now ready to spearhead China's appetite for developing mobile Internet applications for an ever-growing domestic market.

At 43, one would not expect a seasoned manager to cast aside his prowess of managing Internet companies to don the entrepreneur's hat. Instead of going after the huge market potential in mobile Internet, it is the quest for new and emerging technologies that is propelling Luo.

Luo says he has all the right credentials for dabbling in the mobile Internet market. After all, he has single-handedly for several years driven the fortunes of big companies like MSN China, MySpace China and 139 Mobile Internet.

Having spent most of his career with the Windows operating system and its products, eyebrows were raised when Luo decided to hitch his AppChina.com onto the Android platform developed by Google. His venture essentially makes apps for Android users.

"My goal is to build a huge app store for Android applications in China, patterned on the likes of the Apple App Store and the Amazon Appstore," Luo says. "Though the Apple mobile devices are currently more popular in China, I think the Android platform will be more suitable for Chinese smartphone users in the long run."

His confidence in Android is such that he really does not appear to be too concerned by the rich pickings of the Apple App Store in China. "Be it the mobile devices or the App Store, Apple always had high cost associated with it. Its products are still unaffordable to many sections of the market," Luo says.

According to EnfoDesk.com, a subsidiary of consulting firm Analysys International, the market share of Android's smart phones was 68.4 percent during the fourth quarter of last year, and 51.1 percent for the year. The Symbian platform developed by Finnish telecom Nokia ranked second, whereas Apple's iOS was third with less than 10 percent share of the market.

Luo says that in the next two to three years, the number of Android users will swell to 300 million from 100 million.

"On average, every person will have more than 100 downloads every year. If we multiply that with the number of potential users, the demand for apps is somewhere in the region of 30 billion, a huge market," Luo says.

"Many Chinese users are still clueless about app stores as they are not sure of what they need or want. It is precisely this niche that we are looking to cash in on."

Recently, Luo's company released a product called "qiuqiu.so" to help users locate good apps. Besides an app search engine with location based service (LBS), it also provides customized results based on user behavior and location.

After two years of development, Luo's AppChina.com has more than 50,000 apps and at least 15,000 registered app developers. The average daily number of downloads is 4 million, while total downloads have surpassed 1 billion.

AppChina has also attracted nearly 1,000 developers from outside China, accounting for roughly 6 percent of all its developers. Some of them are big names like the Finnish video game developer Rovio, while others are small and medium-sized companies like JellyBus, HandyGames and Drowning Zebra.

Luo says that Google's Play Store, with more than 270,000 apps available in China, does not offer fine user experience. This has proved to be an excellent opportunity for Chinese developers, he says.

With such a huge market in China at stake, it is no wonder that Luo finds himself pitted against big names. But he remains unperturbed and adds that foreign app developers are now more than ever serious on the profitability of Android platforms in China.

"Users want to pay but most of them don't know where or how," Luo says. "That's our job: to recommend good apps, improve the payment process and protect privacy."

He believes that in the second half of this year, some high-quality gaming or books apps will show up on the Android platform.

"To improve users' experience and eliminate their doubts, we have been actively cracking down on malware," he says, explaining another advantage of the Android platform. Many malicious apps charge users extra fees without letting them know.

By counting on the app store, Luo's hope is to reach every mobile user in China, which in real terms stands for 70 percent of China's total population, which still far beyond the personal computer's reach.

Though still in the infancy, Luo's AppChina has already encountered many challenges along with the opportunities.

With the largest number of app developers in the world (145,110), Apple's App Store is still considered by many as the right choice.

Jay Yarow, a senior editor at the Business Insider, said in a recent article that photography app developer Instagram is a typical example of the syndrome that companies give priority to making apps for iOS devices. The company developed its products initially on the iOS platform and then moved on to Android.

The case is the same in China, even though many developers do not want to admit this, as they want to reach out to more users from both platforms. However, iOS still has considerable advantages like a mature app system and users ready to pay for the services.

Contact the writers at suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn and linjingcd@chinadaily.com.cn