Chinese smartphone companies like Lenovo, Xiamo, Oppo and Huwaei have become a household name in the Indian smartphone market. They have given established homegrown companies like Micromax and global smart phone giant Samsung a run for their money.     

However, a starkly different picture comes across when one gauges the status of Chinese applications in the Indian market. The picture is not exactly very rosy, with most Chinese apps struggling to make a dent in the Indian market.

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For instance, a popular messaging app WeChat developed by Chinese company Tencent is a massive hit in China. However, the app ranks 289th in India's Google Play Store, the centralized market place for android apps. This is even after WeChat entered in the Indian market way back in 2012, when India's application market had just started to gather steam.   

"The main reason why Wechat is not doing as well in India as we do is that we are very local," said Kavin Bharti Mittal, founder of a local messaging app, which ranks 31st in India's Google Play Store.

Mittal's Hike app is one of the most successful messaging apps in India. Its ability to offer an array of features that resonate with millions of Indian customers is considered to be the main reason behind its resounding success.

"It is not surprising [that WeChat is not doing well in India] because the China market is huge but very inward and isolated, so they ended up building an app for China not for the world," said Mittal.

Mittal added that the Indian market is more outward in nature as global tech giants like Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp enjoy a free hand to operate in the market. Competing with such tech giants has allowed Indian companies to build products that are global yet local in nature.       

Unlike India, tech giants like Google and Facebook are facing a ban in Mainland China. Although this has given a huge advantage to homegrown companies like Baidu and Weibo, many Chinese experts feel that the absence of global players has insulated Chinese tech companies from the global market.

TagsChinese apps, Chinese apps store, Chinese Smart Phones