Hugo Roosevelt
Lurker
Has anybody sold or knows the process to sell an app in China?
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China´s Android App Stores
- Thread starter Hugo Roosevelt
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Welcome to the world's largest Android market, and there's no Google or Amazon. A very good question indeed, how to sell apps in China? 
Here's the thing, almost nobody pays for apps and games up-front here, and in fact many app stores don't even have provision for that. So you're basically giving them away, and make your money from ads or in-app purchases. Freemium MMORPG type games seem to be one of the most popular genres here, and micro-payments for them are usually done by carrier SMS billing, e.g. China Mobile.
App piracy is rampant all over, so even if you didn't specifically want distribution in China, you might find your app is here already. Sometimes hacked to have an undesirable ad payload or other spyware permissions, which you never put in it. App distribution really can be a wild west here! Give you an example, a free calculator app on Google Play, the original is only something like 400 kilobytes and has no permissions at all, it's just a calculator, doesn't do anything else. What you find in the PRC looks the same, but it's grown to 2-3 megabytes and has just about every permission there is, including making phone calls and sending SMS.And when anyone installs it, they get all kind of undesirable push ads appearing, home-screen ads, plus private data phoned home, etc.
You could try contacting the major companies running app stores, such as Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, Sogou, Downjoy.
This is probably one of the most used app stores...comes pre-installed on many devices here.
http://www.d.cn/en-us/contact.html
This is something that's very common here, in almost every carrier's own stores, CMCC, Unicom and Telecom. The idea is you scan the QR of choice with your phone and the app or game is downloaded directly.
That was from about three years ago, don't think anyone is really interested in Angry Birds these days.... LOL
BTW I wonder if AF's own @scary alien wanted his apps being distributed by one of China's more infamous app stores...
Here's the thing, almost nobody pays for apps and games up-front here, and in fact many app stores don't even have provision for that. So you're basically giving them away, and make your money from ads or in-app purchases. Freemium MMORPG type games seem to be one of the most popular genres here, and micro-payments for them are usually done by carrier SMS billing, e.g. China Mobile.
App piracy is rampant all over, so even if you didn't specifically want distribution in China, you might find your app is here already. Sometimes hacked to have an undesirable ad payload or other spyware permissions, which you never put in it. App distribution really can be a wild west here! Give you an example, a free calculator app on Google Play, the original is only something like 400 kilobytes and has no permissions at all, it's just a calculator, doesn't do anything else. What you find in the PRC looks the same, but it's grown to 2-3 megabytes and has just about every permission there is, including making phone calls and sending SMS.And when anyone installs it, they get all kind of undesirable push ads appearing, home-screen ads, plus private data phoned home, etc.
You could try contacting the major companies running app stores, such as Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, Sogou, Downjoy.
This is probably one of the most used app stores...comes pre-installed on many devices here.
http://www.d.cn/en-us/contact.html
This is something that's very common here, in almost every carrier's own stores, CMCC, Unicom and Telecom. The idea is you scan the QR of choice with your phone and the app or game is downloaded directly.
That was from about three years ago, don't think anyone is really interested in Angry Birds these days.... LOL
BTW I wonder if AF's own @scary alien wanted his apps being distributed by one of China's more infamous app stores...
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Here's a Chinese app store gem that I came across a few months ago.
Can see the word "Root". It's basically telling you you need a rooted device to run this game, because it won't work otherwise because of the original developer's copyright protection in it.
...GOOD LUCK!!
BTW if mods wish to close this thread before we go to something that violates forum rules or is illegal, you're very welcome. ...can join me on WeChat or QQ for more.
Can see the word "Root". It's basically telling you you need a rooted device to run this game, because it won't work otherwise because of the original developer's copyright protection in it.
...GOOD LUCK!!
BTW if mods wish to close this thread before we go to something that violates forum rules or is illegal, you're very welcome.
...can join me on WeChat or QQ for more.
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hiredgun
Android Expert
It is kind of hard to talk about the Chinese App Market WITHOUT it being illegal isn't it big Mike, lol. I think you are good so far though, especially since you are the only one that reads Chinese and actually knows what you are posting, lol.
BTW if mods wish to close this thread before we go to something that violates forum rules or is illegal, you're very welcome.
Hugo Roosevelt
Lurker
Miked Thanks a lot for such an excellent answer to my question. I didn´t know conditions in China were like that. Thanks again!
Good advice.BTW if mods wish to close this thread before we go to something that violates forum rules or is illegal, you're very welcome.
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