Well, believe or not there is a huge market place for third party app store. Apart from the normal Google Play store there is a third party app store which has acquired a considerable amount of users. So let us have a look at what are the offerings of this third party store and how it is beneficial for an Android user.
9Apps is one of the world`s most visited third-party app stores for Android apps. This third-party app store has now 140 million monthly Active users. This is a very huge number of active users on a third party app store. 9Apps and 9Game if the number of daily active users aggregated accounts to a mammoth 8.5 million daily active users. These daily active users make over 18 million of downloads of apps and games on a daily basis.
9Apps and 9Game was launched in 2012. Just after three years 9Apps and 9Game have acquired a huge amount of user base. Both are a part of UCWeb which comes under the Alibaba Group`s mobile business division. They operate in India, Russia and Middle east. They have integrated promotion services which help their partners around the world to grow as they can reach out to a huge amount of user base.
What we liked about 9Apps is that it is an alternative to download the apps and games without any registration. So unlike google play where you have to login from your google account, on 9Apps or 9Game you can directly download the apps without any prior registration. This is a useful feature as people like to have freedom and 9Apps is providing them that freedom to download any apps as per the convenience of the user.
There are also many region-specific apps on the store. This has helped the company to gain more users for sure. They also keep on interacting with their app developers to gain more insights about the market as this helps to reach out to more users. Recently UCWeb has announced the UC Open Platform 2.0 which is an ecosystem helping the Indian mobile internet players to get new users and also monetize traffic using the UC browser, 9Apps, 9Game and UC Union.
9Apps had started their office in Mumbai, India in June, 2014. They have made a tremendous rise in their user base in the last year. They are aggressively acquiring new user base and it is surely been a pioneer in the third party android app market.
We had an exclusive conversation with Mr.Ebrahim Popat, Country Manager – 9Apps:
Which genre of apps are trending on 9apps? Is it games/utility apps?
We have various genres of apps on our platform. Most of the users enjoy downloading games on our platform. We have also seen a rise in the users downloading various utility apps from our platform. These utility apps help the users to use their smartphones effectively. Games have been an important part of our platform. Many users like to download huge number of games. As it is simple and hassle free for downloading games using our platform, users enjoy it.
Did UC Browser helped in getting huge audience for your platform?
As 9Apps is a part of the UCWeb so it was a ready marketplace for us to showcase 9Apps to a huge number of UC Browser users. With simple shortcuts on UC Browser it becomes easier for a user to access or visit our website 9Apps. So yes, it does helps to get integrated with one of the fast growing mobile browser.
How difficult was it to acquire such huge user base on 9apps?
Our journey has been remarkable. In a short amount of time we have acquired a huge user base. All the credits goes to the vast variety of apps available on our platform which gives a huge amount of options to the users. The simplicity of our platform helped us grow in terms of user base.
What is the main source of revenue for 9apps?
Games have been the major source of revenue for 9Apps. Though we have been testing about showcasing regional games and it has been worked for us. Most of the smartphone users like to have a good time while playing games. Our platform is useful for such users to have access to a huge amount of game applications.
What challenges you faced during the journey so far?
It has been a rollercoaster ride for our team to serve such a huge amount of user base. The challenges are many but tackling them smartly and feedback from our users helped us to grow in the right direction.
What is next in store in the future for 9apps?
Our focus will be to serve more and more amount of users. We will introduce more regional based apps on our platform as it will help more users to use 9Apps.
Any message to your users from 9apps?
Thank you for using 9Apps. We are improving ourselves and making our platform more user friendly. There is more in future coming for you. So stay tuned!
What would you like to tell people who have not yet used 9apps.com for downloading apps?
I would just like to say that visit 9Apps.com and you can explore the vast amount of apps on our platform.
So after having an exclusive conversation we had to know why there is a need for a third party app store. So let us find that out in our own observation.
Why there is a need to use third party Android App Store like 9Apps?
As we know that 9Apps is having a good user base and are growing rapidly. For a user what are actually the benefits for using such third party appstore like 9Apps? So let us find that out:
- No registration/Login Required
- Can download many Apps, no Limit
- Most of the Apps are Free
- You can get the direct apk of the game/app
- Developers make content available which is restricted on Google Play
- Users get to enjoy value added services
- Vast amount of apps to choose from
- Many Utility Apps to help the productivity of the user
Well these were some of our observations when we used the 9Apps third party Android App Store. Let us know your observation in the comments below:
have used 9Apps to download some utility apps. its cool. thanks for sharing.