China just dethroned the U.S. as the largest iOS app spender
China is now the largest market in the world for Apple iOS app spending, overtaking the U.S. as number one.
According to analyst firm App Annie, Chinese users spent $1.7 billion on apps and in-app purchases in the third quarter of 2016.
This sent China shooting past the U.S., which had been at the top spot since 2010.
China's app store spending has been on a strong upward trajectory over the past couple of years. In April this year, it overtook Japan in terms of revenue, but it was already the top downloader since last year.
Broadly speaking, freemium apps tend to do better in China compared with paid downloads, explaining the lower revenues compared with downloads. But it appears those in-app payments have now performed well enough to send China to the top of the revenue charts.
App Annie added that 75 percent of China's app spending came from games -- unsurprising, given that Apple's iBooks and iTunes movies are banned in the country.
Instead of downloading and buying movie content, Chinese consumers are also reliant on video streaming, across a range of service providers which include Tencent, Youku and iQiyi.
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Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
