While most Chinese startups are focusing on the huge Chinese market, App Annie, an independent provider of (iTunes) App Store sales analytics and market intelligence, is a Beijing-based startup with global ambitions. Their sales analytics service is currently used by global game publishers and Fortune 500 companies representing more than 6% of all apps, while the market intelligence service gets more than one hundred thousand visits per month.
App Annie caters to the macro and micro needs of the mobile sales analytics industry. For industry interest such as investment companies, App Annie’s analytics can provide insight into the most successful developers in each country. For developers and publishers, App Annie provides sales, downloads and chart performance analysis of competitors’ apps. For instance, On average in the US you need 3.5 times more downloads or revenues to reach top 25 compared to the top 100, but to reach from the top 25 to top 10 you need 1.6 times more downloads and 1.3 times more revenues. This detailed research helps developers plan better budgets and target better channels, to launch precise campaigns to outperform their competition.
To enhance their analytics offering to developers, App Annie recently announced a partnership with US-based Smaato Inc, a leading mobile ad optimization company. This means, more than 11,000 worldwide publishers who currently use Smaato, will also gain access to App Annie analytics. This reinforces the flow of analytics from advertising channels, to sales conversions, to chart performance! (If you’re in the industry you should be able to contain your excitement)
App Annie belongs to a new breed of foreigner-owned startups in China who utilize the relatively cheaper cost of top R&D talent, to surface with unique and top quality service and products targeting global businesses and consumers. With more foreign entrepreneurs and incubators entering the scene, it’s likely that we’ll see more China-based startups with similar intentions. This is especially so in the closed Apple iTunes industry, where barriers to entry and connections are somewhat uniform, even if your father is Li Gang. (Everyone reports only to Steve Jobs)
In the coming months, App Annie will be providing sales and downloads analysis of the local China iTunes App Store market. Watch out for this towards the end of every month!
[This post is written by Junde who has founded and worked for several startups, and is currently an independent consultant/advisor for a few exciting web and mobile startups in China. His current partners include startups in the mobile education, games and payments space.]