China is dominating the App Store

Chinese app developers have seen "remarkable" growth and are dominating Apple's App Store, according to a new analyst note published by Macquarie Research, citing App Annie data.

The note said that China is "now in a league of its own among the top app markets," according to App Annie's data. The Chinese app store is now double the size of the US and Japan when you look at the amount of revenue it generates.

The Asian market as a whole is dominant when it comes to revenue from mobile games. Games from China, Japan, and Korea dominate the top 10 highest-grossing iOS games, according to the App Annie data.

And Macquarie Research went on to say that smartphone gaming in China is so big that revenue from it accounted for an estimated 10% of Apple's global services revenue. Chinese app revenue saw 270% growth in two years, Macquarie said.

So the Chinese app market is vital for Apple - and is a major reason why Apple has been so keen to expand in China with new Apple shops and even dedicated data centres for Chinese user data.