Android’s near-monopoly in China continues with daily active users of the system advanced by 16% quarter-on-quarter in 2014 Q1 and 10% quarter-on-quarter growth in Q2, according to the Baidu Mobile Distribution Report. The slowdown in the growth rate may however mean that the demographic dividend which triggered Android’s great expansion in recent years is tailing off.
With the rise of domestic smartphone manufacturers, 64% of Chinese smartphone users chose domestic brands as of Q2 2014, up from 58% in Q4 2013. Amongst the benefactors of this growth like Huawei and Lenovo, the two up-and-coming mobile makers Xiaomi and OPPO are the major driving forces for this surge, with their market shares climbing 3% and 2% during the six-month period respectively, according to the report.
Chinese users are keen to use the latest versions of Android, with v.4.2 or above becoming the mainstream systems for Android users in China, the report noted. 50% of Android-powered smartphones feature screens with 720p resolution or above.
Driven by the popularity of smartphones and improvement of network coverage, China’s mobile app users surged 27% in H1 this year, with each user estimated to download or update 2.9 apps per day. Some 94% of app downloads are completed in a Wi-Fi environment.
In terms of user demographics, white collar and other urban working groups still constitute the majority of users, but the percentage of student and rural users are increasing. Video and music are the favorite app category for both groups. Search, social networking, news and shopping apps witnessed the most robust growth in H1 2014.
image credit: Baidu & Shutterstock