There is a smartphone race going on in China, with a prize of winning the lion’s share of the largest cell phone market in the world. The app, with Apple’s App Store as a model, may be a big part of that battle.

Although not a huge earner of revenue when compared to the overall iPhone line of business, the Apple App store has proven itself to be invaluable. With a billion downloads well within its first year, the App Store has proven to be a significant tool in the iPhone marketing program. The App Store has orders of magnitude more phone applications than do similar stores by others, such as RIM, Palm, and Android. The availability of tens of thousands of apps makes it easy for potential customers to see the tremendous versatility of the iPhone.

The three large wireless service providers in China have clearly been watching the success of the iPhone and its App Store. Even with Apple in business with China Unicom to the tune of $1.5 billion as an initial order, and even as the largest Chinese provider, China Mobile, continues to negotiate with Apple to get an iPhone of their own, all three Chinese wireless services are building app stores of their own in an attempt to leverage app sales into phone sales just as Apple did with their own groundbreaking App Store.

China Mobile already has such a store, and China Unicom and China Telecom are not far behind the leader. It is possible that they are facing an uphill battle due to problems faced by China but not in the U.S., according to a PCWorld article. However, the appeal of the success of the iPhone and the role played by the App Store, are apparently irresistible. All three Chinese carriers are going to do their best to emulate Apple’s success with the smartphone and the App Store.

It may be difficult, given the level of pirated applications, and the availability of Chinese Web sites to help users unlock the iPhone and other smartphones so that the pirated apps can be used. There is also the barrier that Chinese users are not used to using mobile apps, though the same could be said of users worldwide a couple of years ago. The Chinese will certainly learn, as have we all. Just as it is interesting to watch how far the iPhone itself can penetrate the Chinese market, it will be fascinating to watch how far the iPhone philosophy penetrates the Chinese marketplace.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm under International, News, iPhone.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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