The percentage of new devices that were bought to upgrade existing ones stood at 56% and 59% in Q3 and Q4 last year respectively, eclipsing the percentage for smartphones purchased by first-time buyers, according to the 2013 China Mobile Internet Overview released by Chinese mobile analytics and service provider Umeng.
By the end of 2013, China recorded more than 700 million active smart devices (including smartphones and tablets), up from 500 million as of Q2 2013.
Budget Android devices priced at or below 1,000 yuan (around US$162.9) account for 35% of the Chinese market. However, 27% of the total users are using high-end devices priced over 3000 yuan and 80% of them are iPhone users. These users are more reliant on mobile Internet and have higher demands for smartphone performance. The users of budget phones prefer casual games.
In 2013, Top 5 non-game categories of mobile app in terms of user growth rate were news, health care, social networking, business, and navigation. Social networking took the third spot thanks to the release of new features (pictures, Gif/short videos) as well as surging demands for new functions like dating and parenting, etc.
Socializing your apps is the key to success for developers. Among the Top 100 apps (apps and games), 55% of them provide links to Chinese social networking services (e.g. Sina Weibo, Wechat, QQ, Renren).
According to the report, the year of 2013 became known as the first year for Chinese developers to take IP seriously with 20% of the Top 100 games were licensed by an existing well know brand, including Dad Where Are We Going?, Pocket Ninja, and Despicable Me, etc. The figure was only 13% in June 2013.
Image credit: Umeng