The Apple App Store has been significantly growing in Asia, as we have already stated in our Distimo Publication in June. This has been underlined by the data from July where Asian dominance has taken over in the top 3 countries in terms of free downloads: South Korea is the third after the United States and China, thereby pushing the United Kingdom back to the fourth place.
The situation of Korea is specifically very interesting because of several facts: its population is fairly small compared to those of the preceding ones (source: CIA), which could e.g. mean that the applications downloaded per person has a much higher rate than the other countries.
Also, the iPhone was launched in Korea only at the end of 2009. It took 9 months for the sales to reach 1 million in September 2010, but this number should at least be tripled in one year, as KT Telecom reported to have sold 2,5 million already by May this year.
The other big curiosity for this country is that it has reached 1 million of daily download volume in the Top 300 applications without the Games category. This achievement is stunning because in each and every country – where it’s available – this category has the biggest share of all downloads. In the case of Korea a local law required – until lately – all game content to be reviewed and approved by the Game Rating Board. In reaction to these complicated restrictions, Apple – and also Google – have simply taken out the Games category from their stores. It also resulted in some developers using a work-around by classifying their games as ‘Entertainment’, which apparently was still an available option.
But finally, the so-called “open market” law took effect from July, allowing the games back into the Korean app stores. Because of this, Apple and Google will probably soon reopen their Game categories.
Another important local factor is the difference between the free and paid apps ratio. Although the overall number of downloads has been steadily increasing in Korea, this is mainly due to the free applications: the proportion of paid downloads is still much smaller than in Europe or the United States. This tendency seems to be true for all of Asia. Also, until now local publishers reign the Top 300, which leads us again to the conclusion that localization might be the key for becoming popular in this area.
Borbala Bakonyi