I am not really familiar with the shareware/freeware market in China, although we have discovered some good ones such as Orbit Downloader, SpeedyiTunes etc. Obviously, the market potentially is massive. I used to visit a Chengdu-based company which owns a very popular software called Wopti Utilities, its CEO said that there were over 60 millions computers had it installed in China. The market seems getting much more mature too. Some very popular download sites such as Skycn, Onlinedown which people used to visit for cracked and pirate software have all become the shareware download portals. However, it is still a big question for me that how many Chinese are actually willing to pay the shareware? What I have been told is that the paid customers of SpeedyiTunes, Wopti Utilities and some others are still mainly from oversea.
International Summit on Chinese Shareware (ISCS) 2008 organized by the Association of Chinese Shareware (CNSW) and Digital River will be held on 20th June in Shanghai. The organizer said that shareware has actually been in China for over 10 years, this event is to provide a stage where shareware authors, end users and international or local companies can share the knowledge of international market and Chinese market. So if you are interested in Chinese shareware market, I think ISCS is the event where you can find the answers.
“the paid customers of SpeedyiTunes, Wopti Utilities and some others are still mainly from oversea.” That’s right. I think the Chinese software market is quite massive!