China’s Big Tech crackdown: number of apps falls 40 per cent over 3 years amid new data laws and clean-up campaigns

Chinese app stores had just 2.78 million apps in October, down from 4.52 million in December 2018

The biggest declines came this year, as Beijing clamped down on Big Tech platforms and introduced new data and privacy laws

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Icons for the WeChat and Weibo apps seen on a smartphone on December 5, 2013. Social media platforms have been hit with clean-up campaigns and rectification measures that have taken a toll on the market this year. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:00am, 21 Dec 2021Updated: 7:30am, 21 Dec 2021

Chinese smartphone users have seen the number of apps available to them fall by 38.5 per cent over the past three years, with the most precipitous drop coming this year amid the country’s crackdowns on Big Tech platforms and internet content, showing how China’s fortified market structure has taken a toll on the digital sector.

The total number of apps in Chinese app stores fell to just 2.78 million by October of this year, down from 4.52 million at the end of 2018, according to a South China Morning Post review of data compiled from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The fall in the total number of apps is partly a sign of China’s maturing app market. WeChat, Tencent Holdings’ social network with 1.2 billion monthly active users globally, has dominated social media in China for years.

Leon Sun Qiyuan, an analyst at investment research firm EqualOcean, said China’s online service market of 1 billion users is no longer a greenfield up for grabs. “China’s internet industry has developed for so many years, and the days of tremendous growth are over,” he said.