That China Mobile Deal Is Paying Off for Apple's App Store

After years of talks, Apple struck a deal last year with the world’s largest mobile carrier, China Mobile, and began selling the iPhone 5s and 5c on its network on Jan. 17.

Now it looks like that team-up was a boon for App Store revenue. According to an App Annie report released this morning, iOS revenue from China grew 70 percent between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014. The report also cited strong app download numbers led by the games, travel and social networking categories.

China was already No. 2 in downloads and No. 3 in revenue worldwide before the iPhone came to China Mobile. The “remarkably stable” charts, as App Annie described them, suggest China is still growing in tandem with peers like the U.S. and Japan rather than the “emerging” markets with which it always used to be associated.

Along with Brazil, Russia and India, China is one of the four markets often lumped together as BRIC. It’s worth noting that all three of China’s peers made it into the Google Play top-five chart for download volume in Q1, with Brazil rising to No. 2 behind the U.S., and Russia climbing two spots to No. 3. Google Play has long been a small minority player compared to third-party Android app stores in China, so its absence is not surprising. None of the BRIC countries made it into the Google Play chart for revenue, however.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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