According to iResearch, in the first half of 2013, China mobile app developers kept losing money and the percentage of net loss developers increased significantly. Besides, most app users’ number could not reach a million.
The research showed that more than 60% mobile app developers suffered net loss in the first half of 2013. 35.6% developers even faced with severe net loss. In 2012, the percentage of severe loss was 9.1%.
16.8% developers had made profits, the percentage in 2012 was 22.3%. One reason for the decrease was that a lot of new developers entered the market in the beginning of 2013.
The major business model of Chinese mobile app developers were paid download, free download with pre-installed ads, free download with value-added service. Most developers chose free download with pre-installed ads. In general, paid download and free download with pre-installed ads were not so optimistic, some paid app even offered free download such as Autonavi.
In terms of the number of users, Chinese mobile app developers were facing severe challenges. 96% apps users were under 500,000, and about 0.6% apps had over 1 million users.