Recently, Huawei Developer Alliance and iResearch jointly released the "White Paper on Insights into the Trend of Mobile Applications Going Global in 2022". The white paper combines a variety of research methods to analyze the attractiveness of mobile applications going overseas,

As the epidemic has not yet subsided, what inspiration can this white paper give to Chinese people going overseas? In this article, Inpander will summarize some of the highlights and share them with you.

1. What are the changes in the overseas market of the Internet? In terms of the background of

going overseas, the domestic market has bid farewell to traffic dividends, policies have once again upgraded its efforts to go overseas, and the huge growth space in overseas markets is an important factor in allowing mobile applications to "go global".

1. Say goodbye to traffic dividends in the domestic market

The domestic mobile application industry has become more and more prominent in its stock era. The increase in users has slowed down significantly, and the penetration rate of in multiple categories of applications is becoming saturated.

Compared with 2020, the penetration rate of TOP3 applications in multiple categories will further increase in 2021, and even tend to be saturated. The focus of the domestic application market is obviously tilted towards stock. Small and medium-sized enterprises at a competitive disadvantage will become one of the important strategic choices for mobile applications by expanding overseas markets to find new growth opportunities.

2. Policies for going overseas have been upgraded again

In the past year, our country has increased its support for digital economy companies to go overseas. By further improving the institutional environment, it has gradually improved the services for digital economy enterprises, and provided enterprises with various services in many aspects. Provide convenience and work together to reduce the worries of overseas enterprises, and at the same time emphasize technological innovation, digital infrastructure construction, industrial integration and international cooperation, guiding the direction for the launch of high-quality mobile applications and their deepening in the international market.

3. Overseas markets present “incremental” and “income-generating” potential

In overseas markets, the expanding scale of Internet users, rapid growth of Internet penetration rate Middle East and Latin America and other regional markets, and the good overseas market performance of Chinese mobile phone brands have laid the foundation The hardware foundation and other aspects have provided opportunities for domestic mobile applications to go overseas.

According to the questionnaire survey data of 86 mobile application developers collected by iResearch in April, 80.9% of application developers chose to go overseas because they value the growth space in overseas markets.

2. What is the hottest Internet overseas track? In terms of industry opportunities for

, the white paper provides a detailed analysis of the overseas expansion of each major category. We first divide it into game and non-game tracks for analysis:

1. The game track

is the main category of Chinese applications going overseas. Games have gone overseas in the past year. The revenue growth rate is strong and far exceeds the average growth rate of global games. Also during this period, as many game manufacturers chose to incorporate national style elements into theme innovation, overseas products also had stronger cultural attributes, further promoting the overseas expansion of national culture.

From the perspective of game product types, most categories have experienced growth in revenue. Role-playing, strategy and other medium-to-hardcore games that overseas game manufacturers are deeply engaged in are still the main driving force of revenue. In 2021, the strategy category achieved a growth of 42.3%. , it can be seen that domestic manufacturers’ control over this category continues to increase.

Some small, medium and light categories are also showing strong growth. In particular, simulation and elimination categories have become the categories with the fastest growth in overseas revenue, with year-on-year growth exceeding 40%. Especially the elimination category, it increased by 121.9% in one breath, which can be said to be a dark horse in the medium and light categories.

2. Non-game track

1) E-commerce

Compared with 2020, downloads in many categories have declined in 2021, but only shopping downloads have continued to rise (12.1% growth), which may be related to the easing of the epidemic and the real economy. related to the recovery.

2) Video & photo APP

From the perspective of product type, among the non-game applications in my country, the most popular ones are video & photo APPs. Among them, Southeast Asia, South Asia and other places have the highest download index. The reasons behind it are not only It is related to the large population in the two places, and also matches the users’ “close social” habits.

3) Entertainment & Social

The categories appearing in the TOP2-5 in each region also show similarities in preferences, especially entertainment and social.The content and functions of these two types of applications are similar, and their attributes are highly overlapping. Their popularity is mainly driven by the broad leisure needs of the audience.

Among them, social mobile applications have shown a trend of meta-cosmization, local refinement and functional compounding when going overseas. In 2021, overseas social applications quickly integrated the concept of the metaverse into their products. In order to improve the competitiveness of localization in social applications, many companies capture the more nuanced customs and preferences of overseas markets, continuously improve their products, and conduct refined operations and development. In terms of scenarios and gameplay, with the discovery of the diversity and differences of overseas users’ social needs and the upgrade of real-time interactive technology, many social applications have gradually expanded to include more complex functions.

However, entertainment applications have experienced explosive growth overseas, with overseas revenue growth exceeding 200% in 2021. Especially in the Middle East, which has a large number of users, loves entertainment, and has strong purchasing power, the revenue growth rate ranks first.

4) Subdivided areas

In the subdivided areas, in addition to the short video track which is relatively crowded, there is a large space for mobile applications such as web articles and audio to go global.

In terms of online writing: Some leading companies have pushed their online writing front overseas, paying more attention to original content and diversified themes. The improvement of artificial intelligence translation technology has increased the comfort of reading;

Voices go overseas: Some entertainment companies have already Extending its tentacles to audio books, attaching them to novels, comics and other content has won the favor of overseas markets;

short video derivatives: short video head application has a solid position, but for new players, short video-related entrances such as Video dubbing, beautification, and editing can also get a space.

3.2022, where to go to sea?

In terms of global regions, compared with the already relatively mature domestic market, there are many macro dividends and faster-growing industry opportunities in overseas emerging markets and developed markets. The white paper uses the combination model in the three dimensions of "income potential - income scale - concentration" to analyze mobile applications entering Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, North America , South America, Europe and Oceania . A potential assessment was conducted and targeted layout and development recommendations were made.

From a market perspective, we can currently classify them into two categories:

1. Mature markets: North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea, etc.

Most of these regions have fierce competition, abundant product supply or even excess. The competition is based on comprehensive strength, but users It has good payment habits, strong payment ability, and has a certain "radiation" influence on other markets, especially the North American market.

2. Emerging markets: Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, etc.

Most of these regions have slightly poor Internet infrastructure , limited mobile Internet penetration, per capita disposable income less, a clear gap between the rich and the poor, and average willingness to pay. However, it has strong development potential, a relatively large population base, more demand for Internet products, and a relatively high acceptance of China's overseas products.

According to the statistics of the white paper, it can be found that overseas games in these regions are in fierce battle zones, and the concentration and revenue potential of leading apps in the game category are low. It is worth mentioning that the game category has the largest revenue scale in the above-mentioned regions. This region is likely to have a large number of players and has a relatively greater chance of standing out. This also echoes the current market situation of emerging markets with weak income but strong downloads, which has strong entry attraction for most small and medium-sized manufacturers.

4. How to lay out different markets and create differentiated competitive advantages

1. Southeast Asia

Overall, the Southeast Asian market is not located in the Red Sea area. Most of them are located in challenge areas with high income potential and head concentration. This phenomenon stems from the fact that the world has seen the growth rate of Southeast Asia in recent years. Coupled with the relatively low investment costs, major manufacturers have invested their products in the local area, accelerating market competition in Southeast Asia.

However, despite fierce competition, Chinese Apps "going to Nanyang" have an advantage due to the local market's acceptance of China's high cultural level and easy localization. In addition, the entertainment market outside the Internet is also actively imitating China's domestic entertainment style. Often companies can develop in the local market by adopting the same marketing methods as domestic ones.

can give priority to categories such as games, videos & photos in terms of industry recommendation.

1) Games

At the game level, Indonesia is one of the main target markets for Chinese Internet companies in Southeast Asia. Indonesia has a population of more than 260 million, a high Internet penetration rate, and a good overall hardware infrastructure. Shooting and MOBA are the games preferred by local players. type.

2) Video & Photos

Southeast Asia’s video & photo applications have a relatively high concentration of titles. Small and medium-sized players may enter or face a compressed competitive space, but their income potential is significantly higher than that of the social category. , Vietnam, , Thailand and other places have strong demand for video & photo applications, which is a very promising track.

2. South Asia

Similar to Southeast Asia, the South Asian market is not located in the Red Sea area. Most of them are located in potential areas with low concentration and high income potential, as well as challenge areas with high income potential and head concentration.

In terms of industry recommendation, in addition to games, Chinese-funded enterprises can give priority to social networking and tool applications. These are the two major applications in South Asia that are in the potential area. The top concentration is not yet obvious, and the revenue potential is higher than the game type. Among them, the revenue scale of the social category is second only to the game. Compared with the entertainment category, the concentration of videos & photos is low, but the potential is higher than that of the entertainment category, making it more attractive to enter.

Among the many countries in South Asia, everyone paid more attention to India in the past, but India’s changing application policies have to some extent hindered the pace of domestic games going overseas. So which other countries in South Asia are worthy of overseas game manufacturers investing heavily? The

white paper introduces Bangladesh and Pakistan . Both countries have a population of over 100 million and have great development potential. Bangladesh has a population of more than 160 million, an Internet penetration rate of 70.5%, and a good user base and hardware infrastructure, which provides a good equipment foundation for the development of mobile applications.

3. Middle East

As far as the Middle East is concerned, gaming and social networking are the two largest mobile application markets, and the revenue of tools is far less than that of other categories.

In the Middle East, China’s overseas social and pan-entertainment apps occupy almost half of the local market. In the Top 100 non-game list of Saudi app store, 79 products are social pan-entertainment products, of which 46 are Chinese overseas social pan-entertainment products; in Turkey and Egypt , the situation is basically similar. .

In addition, video & photo, entertainment and social networking have roughly the same industry competition, but the income potential of video & photo is higher.

In addition, the average line of the top concentration of the five major categories in the Middle East is skewed to the right, indicating that the concentration is higher than other regions in the world. It can be seen that the competition for the top in the Middle East market is relatively obvious.

Among them, Saudi Arabia is a key area for the Internet, with a penetration rate of 90.1%, which provides a good equipment foundation for the development of mobile applications. Although the Internet penetration rate in Egypt is not as good as that of Saudi Arabia, it has a population of over 100 million and a relatively large user base. Become one of the potential countries.

4. Africa

Africa is generally in a blue ocean state, with low head concentration and large room for income growth, and there is no large difference in the total income between categories. Tools, videos & photos are located in the potential area.

Among relevant countries, South Africa, Nigeria, and all have good Internet penetration rates, which are higher than the overall African average. It is relatively convenient to obtain data in the African market, but from an income perspective, the limited consumption level of Internet users may be difficult for paid applications to monetize.

Generally speaking, Africa's stable income growth rate and penetration rate growth will bring new market opportunities.

5. How to solve localization problems?

It is worth noting that although Chinese-funded enterprises face many opportunities when going overseas, there are also challenges such as safety and compliance, acclimatization, localization promotion, and overseas policies:

1. Safety and compliance

In the past two years, many governments and platforms have successively The introduction of relevant regulations has put forward higher requirements for privacy security, data protection, compliance operations and other aspects. The most typical of these is India. From 2020 to February this year, India has carried out multiple rounds of banning measures against Chinese mobile applications on the grounds of "security threats", and has removed more than 300 APPs from the shelves, resulting in the world's largest growth There are many long-term gaps in the volume market.

Therefore, for overseas applications that are about to deploy in other "blue ocean" countries, compliance self-examination has become very important. At the same time, standardized application can also avoid policy risks to a large extent, which is a good opportunity to demonstrate competitive advantages.

2. Acclimatization

Although companies will study the local cultural environment in detail before going overseas, after entering overseas markets, it is still difficult to avoid acclimatization.

On the one hand, this is due to the fact that many overseas companies do not have a deep understanding of local culture, lack of local information, and are slow to collect information. Developers need to go deep into the local area for a long time to improve their understanding;

On the other hand, local operations, marketing promotion, and traffic monetization Links such as this are always based on the understanding of overseas users, and information bias may be transmitted to all levels, causing trouble for corporate decision-making. Therefore, during the planning stage of going overseas, and after going overseas, comprehensive professional local service consultation can improve the reliability of information, thereby improving the accuracy of developers' decision-making.

3. Limited local promotion resources

The challenge of local promotion is concentrated on the lack of channels, including distribution channels and marketing channels, which has become the primary challenge that hinders high-quality applications from acquiring customers. For small and medium-sized digital enterprises, the process from finding marketing resources to establishing long-term and stable cooperation in the early stages of going overseas is not only a time problem, but also a cost efficiency problem. Choosing a platform that can integrate channel resources can alleviate promotion and Customer acquisition burden.

4. Unfamiliar with overseas policies

As the regulatory intensity of various countries increases, familiarity with local data compliance and privacy protection policies can greatly reduce the impact of tightening regulations. The primary challenge in deploying resources overseas is the lack of all-round, one-stop partners (73.3%). The preparation for globalization deployment is complex, the process is complicated, and risk issues exist everywhere. The AppGallery Connect overseas solution can help developers solve the deployment problems in the early stage of overseas deployment.

In addition to the above content, this white paper also has many highlights. Interested friends can search on WeChat and follow : Inpander Going Global, reply to [Overseas Market] , and view and download the complete content of "White Paper on Insights into the Trend of Mobile Applications Going Global in 2022" .