Every company looking to expand has weighed up the pros and cons of the Chinese market.

Android, with its open platform, has been a particularly good fit with Chinese carriers, taking hold of an estimated 50 percent share of the smartphone market as of December.

Now, US-Chinese social gaming network PapayaMobile is set to tap up a crucial portion of those consumers, having signed a deal with LG that will see the platform pre-installed on the firm's Android handsets in the region throughout Q1 2011.

LG also has the option to extend the deal with Papaya should it prove fruitful.

China in your hands"Papaya aims to be the leading global social gaming platform on Android and our partnership with LG and the release of our China SDK continue to play into this global strategy," said co-founder and CEO Si Shen.

"As our presence expands, developers who want to use our social tools and increasing user base can share in our growth."

PapayaMobile, which launched a localised SDK in China in December, already boasts an 8 million strong userbase in the US and Europe.

Its plans in China are far bigger, however. Within the next two years, the firm is looking to sign up 32 million new users in China alone.

Such a foothold would make Papaya an irresistible prospect to developers looking to make an impression in the territory; an expanding userbase in turn leading to an increasing catalogue of games.

[source: PapayaMobile]
[This story originally claimed PapayaMobile would be installed on all LG handsets in China throughout 2011. However, following a clarification from LG, it's been updated to illustrate the fact the firm is only committed to installing Papaya on a portion of its handsets in Q1 2011.]