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The special path of Chinese mobile applications.
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Residents of China are in line. Photo by Financial Times
More than 600 million people in China own smartphones. Especially Android phones - because of their low price compared to the iPhone. Such an attractive market could bring huge profits to Western apps, but most of them are blocked in the country.
Instead of the blocked Google Play, there are at least 10 similar stores operating in China. They offer applications hosted in the American counterpart, while bypassing Google blocking. The most striking example is the 360 market store. It offers more than 150 thousand applications.
360 market does not completely replace the American store, but offers similar Chinese applications. The advantage of the service compared to other Chinese stores is its large assortment of video games. For example, when the game “Plants vs. Zombies 2”, on 360 market it was downloaded by more than 10 million people in 36 hours.
According to the service's management, it reaches more than 400 million people every month. For comparison, Google Play has more than a billion people every month.
Photo sharing app Camera360
Camera360 interface
Indirect analogue of Instagram
After Instagram was blocked in 2014, Chinese developers did not completely copy the functionality of the application, but, on the contrary, expanded it in similar services. The most popular of them is Camera360. As stated in the description of the application, it quickly contours the face, smoothes the skin, enlarges the eyes, removes acne or blackheads, blurs and crops the image. In general, “good for selfies.” Additionally, users can add stickers and animations to photos.
After processing, the application uploads the photos to social network, similar to Instagram: there you can also follow people, like and comment on other people's photos. The number of people who have downloaded the application is more than one, it is also popular in other countries. For comparison, 700 million people in the world use Instagram.
Alipay payment system
An icon with AliPay and WeChat QR codes for paying for purchases in a cafe. Alibaba Photos
The most popular Chinese payment system created by Alibaba. Using the service, people pay for gas, electricity, communication bills, and purchases in stores or on websites. You can also buy securities, take out insurance, or transfer money to a bank account through the application.
Most stores in major cities have an icon at the cash register with QR codes for Alipay and WeChat wallets. Authorization is also available in the application using . The service reaches 450 million people. PayPal services 179 million people.
Taxi calling service Didi
Driving directions built in the Didi app. Photo by AFP
At the beginning of 2016, Didi launched with Uber China for Chinese customers. The American company offered more favorable rates, but Didi was available in almost all cities of the country. As a result, the Chinese service bought the rights to Uber China for $35 billion. Uber investors own a 20% stake in Didi, and in addition, according to anonymous sources, the Chinese company invested a billion dollars in the American Uber.
Residents of China usually pay for trips to Didi using local payment systems: Union Pay, Alipay and Baidu Wallet. Foreign tourists usually do not have cards for these services, so they often provide cash services. The company's management expects to develop the direction of self-driving cars in the coming years. To do this, in March 2017 the company opened a laboratory in California.
Didi is used by about 400 million people. The approximate number of users who have downloaded the application ranges from 100 to 500 million people. In 2016, the head of Uber, Travis Kalanick, said that 40 million people use the American service every month.
Taobao Online Store
Workers at a Taobao branch in a Chinese village. AP Photo
One of the world's largest online stores selling various goods. The assortment includes air and ground transport, rare food from exotic countries, plants, Appliances, collector's editions of books, rare comics and household goods. Any registered user can sell and buy goods, and prices, even taking into account shipments to another country, attract customers from Europe and the USA.
In many populated areas In China, about 10% of the population engages in online trading via an app. One of the problems with Taobao, for which the service has been repeatedly criticized, is the sale of low-quality items. These complaints, however, do not deter the approximately 400 million monthly users of the service. eBay at the same time - 179 million people.
Tantan dating app
Tantan interface. Photo by Toronto Star
The operating principle of Tantan repeats the well-known American service - by swiping left or right, the user decides whether he wants to communicate with the proposed person or not. Options are selected taking into account the selected filters and geographical location user.
The application contains offensive stop words, after using which the user receives a warning. Among such phrases are “I’ll meet you for sex”, “sex for one night”, “good in bed”, “I’ll sleep with you”, “ intimate photos", "I'm looking for a prostitute." As on the site, almost 600 million “matches” were made in the application during its work.
In 2015, the investment company Bertelsmann Asia Investments in Tantan $5 million. In May 2016, businessman Yuri Milner led a $32 million round of investments in Tantan. At the same time, it was reported that 2.5 million people use the application every day, of which 80% are people under 30 years of age. In 2014, Tinder's approximate user base was around 10 million people per day, but since then the company has only disclosed . According to the latest data, users of the service make 1.6 billion swipes per day, and Tinder has about
In the Celestial Empire, there are strict restrictions on the operation of common instant messengers; all correspondence passes through the Golden Shield firewall. Upon arrival in China, it turns out that almost none of the usual programs connect to the server. In this article we will look at which messengers work in China in 2018, and which ones will need to be logged in via a VPN to work.
If this is a business trip, most likely you are going to Macau or Hong Kong, in this business zone the ubiquitous Golden Shield allows all messengers to work for foreign tourists and local Chinese businessmen. The government understands that limiting communication with the world, a leading Chinese company, is unprofitable, although it undergoes traffic control of all instant messengers. In general, for the messenger to work in China, the authors had to provide user data without encryption to the intelligence services. Only in this case are they available in the official iOS and Android stores and their operation is not blocked.
WeChat - "Chinese everything"
Chinese residents once again surprised the whole world by launching a unique messenger called WiChat. Overall, this is not a simple program for exchanging instant messages or photos of your cats. It acts as a payment system (and fully), with the help of it one can identify one’s personality, one can pay for any purchases and bills in restaurants, order a taxi, and much more.
Every Chinese person has WiChat, and a Russian businessman simply won’t be able to communicate with them without it. Yes in Russian Federation it is not popular, and in 2017 Roskomnadzor even tried to block it. But you need to install WeChat in mandatory, if you are traveling on a business trip to China.
Skype in China only via VPN
The Chinese government does not prohibit tourists and businessmen from other countries from using Skype installed in advance. Yes, you cannot officially download it from Google Play or AppStore directly in the Middle Kingdom, it has been deleted there. But you can use the pre-installed one, although any day the government may decide that it poses some kind of threat and communication interruptions will begin immediately.
Based on the fact that there are no guarantees, it is better to protect yourself before your trip and purchase a Rocket VPN subscription for Skype in China and use it without any obstacles at any time of the day or night.
WhatsApp is also banned
The Chinese government also blocked WhatsApp in China, due to the fact that it was created by Facebook. But the owners of the messenger did not agree to full cooperation and did not provide access to their users’ data. Therefore, using WhatsApp in China via a VPN is the only option.
Telegram blocked immediately
The new project of Pavel Durov, the creator of VK, was blocked in the Celestial Empire by the “Golden Shield” practically the next day after its release in 2015. Since Telegram uses truly encrypted messages, which can even be deleted themselves after a specified period of time. Of course, the Chinese authorities tolerated this, and the Golden Shield covered all Telegram servers. Therefore, in China you only need to access Telegram through a VPN.
Viber in China and banned again
Despite the fact that Viber is quite popular in China, it was also blocked in 2014 due to the government’s failure to gain access to users’ personal correspondence. Therefore, if you need Viber in China, immediately stock up on a reliable VPN, because you can only use it by bypassing the blocking.
How to access instant messenger in China via VPN
The Golden Shield installed by the Chinese government does not prevent you from using any websites or instant messengers once you install Rocket VPN.
Our service offers VPN for smartphone and laptop with the same access, making work easier. Therefore, using our VPN, you don’t have to think about which messenger to use in China, the answer is obvious - the one you like. If you take a subscription for 1 month, it will cost you $5, if you take for a longer period, there will be discounts of up to 50%. Rocket VPN will give you access to Google services, your favorite Instagram and VK.
With Rocket VPN for China, you will easily access any instant messenger in 2018-2019 at high speed and completely anonymously.
