Red tiles over China: WPDang and OpenXLive released the first Chinese Windows Phone market overview report

Windows Phone in the Central Kingdom

Till this day, how big exactly is the Windows Phone ecosystem is largely a myth. Microsoft is keeping crucial figures all to itself. Over time, many tried to measure the ecosystem with various ways, such as the active users of the Windows Telephone Facebook client.

At present WPDang and OpenXLive have decided to do it a fleck more scientifically: with consolidated server data of 112 apps and games. Sadly the report only covers the Chinese marketplace, because the majority of these data source apps either brand sense only to Chinese users, or are well ranked only in the Chinese Market place...

Even so, the report might be interesting to developers elsewhere. As nosotros know it, China has overtaken the US as the largest smartphone market place in the globe, and is still apace growing. There will be enough of market place share for Windows Telephone to take. Hopefully the report could answer common questions such equally "How large is the market exactly?" "Is information technology being well accepted past consumers?" "What kind of devices should I consider offset when developing something for the Chinese market?"

A few key points of the study are:

Windows Phone formally showed upward in China extremely late. At present it's starting at a fairly low point, simply information technology'southward been growing at very remarkable speed and then far.
Nokia rules the entire game, with Lumia 610 being the super star.
Current Xbox Alive titles are either completely absent in the Chinese Market place, or take the social function stripped down. This might give contained developers a improve chance past competing on an even footing.
Localization and payment issues of the Chinese Bone will be addressed presently with the release of Windows Telephone 8.

As I have noticed, there are some international developers already trying to court Chinese Windows Phone users. The latest case of such effort is World of Rabbit. The game comes with multilingual UI including Simplified Chinese. Despite the uninteresting font and slightly inaccurate car translation, the concluding product is actually quite decent. Kudos to the developer for the effort!

Then, what do you think of the written report? Any suggestions for comeback? Do you feel the Chinese marketplace of commercial interest? Or do you advise nosotros should nautical chart the US market somehow? Let us know in the comment field.

And the WPDang & OpenXLive report comes in bilingual flavour (English language & Simplified Chinese). To download the whole thing, click hither for the news release, find the "English version" link, and just click.

We may earn a committee for purchases using our links. Learn more.