Top-Ranking Super Apps in China Marketers Should Know
Updated: Mar 23, 2019
If your brand is looking to enter the Chinese market, there are some super platforms in China you should know.
#Trustdata, a Chinese mobile internet research firm, recently released its February figures for China’s top 200 mobile app rankings. The post was in Chinese so we highlight some figures in English for your reference.
The top 5 most used apps are #WeChat, #Alipay, #QQ, #Taobao and #Baidu.
China’s super social messaging app, WeChat (#微信), still maintained its top position, with 1.01 billion monthly active users (#MAU).
Further reading: Enter China Market by a China-accessible WeChat Official Account with Little Cost
Alipay (#支付宝), the non-social payment app, ranked second with 608 million MAU.
Tencent’s social networking app QQ obtained 600 million MAU, ranking the third overall.
What about #Weibo (#微博)? The twitter-type super app in China was out of top 10 list, ranking No 13 with 208 millions MAU with increased rate of 15%. It is still a very important marketing tool that we shouldn’t ignore.
Taobao: Top general e-commerce app
#Pinduoduo (#拼多多) was the only app in the top 6 e-commence apps that not declined in February.
Taobao (#淘宝), ranked the top, but active user count softened 2.8% compared with the previous month while #JD (#京东), #Tmall (#天猫), #Sunning (#苏宁易购) and #Dangdang (#当当) declined more than 10%.
Whilst people were shifting to more vertical social e-commerce app like #Xiaohongshu (#小红书) which increased more than 16%.
Global e-commerce giant #Amazon unfortunately were not in the Top 200 app list in China.
Xiaohongshu: Top cross-border e-commerce app
Chinese social commerce unicorn Xiaohongshu, also known as “Little Red Book” in Chinese or “RED"operates like a combination of #Instagram and #Amazon where users share photos and videos, write posts and hashtag products on their pictures that link to e-commerce.
Xiaohongshu was ranked No 1 in cross-border e-commerce app with over 49.7 millions MAU. It is definitely the absolute market leader in this category. #NetEase’s #Kaola is the second but with only 2.9 millions MAU.
If you are an overseas brand planning to enter the China market, #Xiaohongshu is a good option to test the waters.
Further reading: Cross-Border E-commerce: Is Your Brand Ready to Enter China?
Duoyin: Top short video app
Short video app’s month active user size grew significantly during February. #Bytedance’s #Douyin (#抖音, known internationally as #TikTok) ranked No. 7 in the top 200 list, with 303 million MAU. It has already passed 1 billion global downloads.
Douyin is not simply a short video app to produce and browse quick-fire clips for fun but a powerful sales tool for brands to achieve tremendous impulse sales in short time.
More examples of Douyin’s sales power, read here:
Short Video Douyin Uses POI to Achieve O2O Conversion
February is an interesting month in China which reflected a very different user behavior due to weeklong Spring Festival holiday. Social, gaming, video streaming, entertainment and photo editing apps became the most popular categories while usage of e-commerce apps declined compared to the previous month.
About Author
Eddie Hung
China Business Strategist and Digital Marketing Expert Click here to connect with the author on Linkedin
Further reading
Cross-Border E-commerce: Is Your Brand Ready to Enter China?
Enter China Market by a China-accessible WeChat Official Account with Little Cost
Why Is Content Marketing So Important? Here’s What It Needs To Be
Click here to read the Top 200 list (in Chinese)