Behind the Scenes of China's iPhone Apps

November 11, 2009 at 12:48 pm PT

Statistics tell us that there are already more than two million iPhones in China, and the number is expected to rise (at least a little) following the recent official launch of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 3G in the country through local telecom carrier China Unicom.

Both Chinese and foreign firms have been releasing apps targeting China’s iPhone users, even before the Apple smart phone was officially launched in China. Among the most popular apps are Chinese-English dictionaries and Chinese city maps.

Big local players have already flocked to the market. Leading Web portal Sina.com has promoted its offerings on the iPhone App Store to feed users with Chinese news and enable them to update their blogs via iPhone. Tencent, the Internet company that runs the popular Chinese instant messaging system QQ, also offers QQ for iPhone users in and outside China.

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Tagged with: Apple, China, China Real Time Report, China Unicom, city maps, dictionaries, digital, Digits, frontpage, hardware, innovation, instant messaging, Internet, iPhones, Juliet Ye, QQ, Sina.com, smartphone, software, telecom, Tencent, The Wall Street Journal

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