Mobile specialists and marketers needs to consider many thing when developing apps for travellers from China.
NB: This is a guest article by Ritesh Gupta, a reporter for China Travel News.
For starters, there are more than 100 app stores in China, so it is a mistake to focus only on iTunes and Google Play. Leaders in this arena include Qihoo’s 360 Mobile Assistant, Tencent’s Myapp and Baidu Mobile Assistant.
[NOTE - Data doesn’t feature iOS].
Haoran Chen, mobile engineering director at Ctrip, explained:
“Users are moving to mobile in China. At Ctrip.com, we provide seamless user experience to our users across traditional PC website, mobile apps and new devices like Apple Watch. Users can access the full functionality, regardless of PC website and mobile apps.”
There are three headline areas of concern for the app developers and the teams responsible for promoting the apps
Dealing with peculiar features of handsets - or "version diversion"
Mobile engineering teams have to factor in the sheer number of different mobile handsets. Chen says that Chinese vendors’ mobile handsets are mostly based on Android.
However they replace some original Google services with their own versions. “Sometimes they also add features like the ones iOS system has. The result is version diversion.”
In order to cope with this, Chen's team at Ctrip has allocated additional developer resources to make sure the company’s app is compatible with different vendors’ Android and hardware systems.
“For iOS, the system is more consistent. Users can easily and are also more willing to upgrade to the latest version,” explains Chen.
Ctrip.com's app download numbers are impressive - 800m or so by the end of the first quarter this year, an increase of over 550% in twelve months. Mobile channels accounted for around 70% of total online transactions in the first three months of 2015.
Promoting apps
Search engines drive traffic that aims to increase the adoption of mobile apps.
Gene Deng, vice president for online retailer JD.com says:
“The focus in China is primarily on driving traffic to mobile websites. Already there is an option to land on a specific page of an app if you are searching on the mobile website. So a user can reach to a desire page on an app, provided it’s downloaded.”
He adds: “There are many options to drive traffic to mobile websites, such as a paid listing on hao123.com".
An advertiser can list their website in a chosen category and pick up traffic as a result.
Baidu is another option to target audience.
He also noted that iOS options are limited, while Google provides several channels for Android apps, including a Chinese version of Google Play
The list of Android apps distribution channels include Qihoo 360, Wandoujia and 91, according to Deng.
Apps themselves can be used in a wider promotional context.
During the Chinese Spring festival JD.com distributed virtual “red envelops” – traditional Chinese gifts of money to consumers – worth around RMB100 million ($16 million) via Weixin and Mobile QQ, two mobile social applications in China, to promote brand awareness and enhance customer stickiness.
Elsewhere, LY.com initiated an aggressive app promotion last year. Titled, RMB 1 Attraction Ticket, it encourages the users to download the mobile app to buy this RMB 1 ticket.
This has driven the number of app downloaded to over 110 million in about six months, ranking them after Ctrip and Qunar.
Adapting it at a local level
For foreign brands with a presence in China, it is essential to call upon local research and engineering capabilities.
Digital marketer and hospitality industry executive Hugh Xu says when his team works on a new app the first task is to assess what a potential guest expects from the app. It is important, he added, to test with customers at every stage so their needs are always front of mind.
For apps that are part of a brand's global assets, the focus is more on localization, making sure that global brand values can coincide with local delivery.
But different departments have different requirements, and Chen admitted that at Ctrip these demands often conflict.
“For example, marketing might hoping to push more messages to the user, but the product team might question the impact this will have on the user experience. We need to find compromises."
NB: This is a guest article by Ritesh Gupta, a reporter for China Travel News.
NB2:Image by Shutterstock