Chinese mobile users download more games and apps

Chinese users tend to download more applications and games to their cellphones than mobile users in Western Europe, according to market research company Canalys.

A new survey by Canalys found that 51 per cent of Chinese mobile users downloaded such programs to their handsets. This is 29 per cent higher than with mobile users based in France, Germany and the U.K.

Among the applications Chinese users like to download, books are the most popular: 68 percent of those who download applications to their cellphones say they read books on their handsets. That number is even higher, at 76 per cent, for users aged 16 to 25.

Other applications that many Chinese users downloaded included dictionaries and translation programs, as well as weather, news and mapping applications. Canalys points out that these mobile downloads are not limited to smartphone users. Their survey shows that almost half of Nokia's non-smartphone users still download applications and games to their mobile phones.