China-based Huawei has announced its latest AppGallery figures, revealing that it surpassed 580 million daily active users by the end of Q3 2022. This represents a growth rate above 16 percent compared to the year prior.

With China being such a prominent frontrunner in all things mobile gaming, it may come as little surprise to see another achievement from the country.

However, this has become more of a disputed subject through 2022 as China has introduced stricter impositions upon the country’s gaming sector both in terms of playtime and the number of licenced games. Even the tech giant Tencent has seen its revenue decline this year, dropping from $20.4 billion in Q2 2021 to $19.7 billion in the 2022 equivalent.

In fact, Tencent has also lost its crown as China’s biggest company this quarter, as China overall has been seeing its gaming market decrease by 19.1 percent quarter-on-quarter. Adding to this, there were no new game licences in China for the first time in six months this October, the first time since the freeze was lifted in April.

Conversely, AppGallery apps powered by Huawei Mobile Service (HMS) now total more than 220,000 since the service’s 2018 launch; and when comparing to Q3 of 2020, the number of apps has had a growth rate of 120 percent.

Growing an audience

Huawei’s 2022 AppGallery awards earlier this month marked numerous wins for mobile games. Its own platform for app distribution now has a community of developers more than 6 million strong, growing 200 percent compared to Q3 2020.

The company has announced a loyalty programme with increasingly noteworthy discounts available as users "level up", download apps and make in-app purchases, as reported by HuaweiCentral.

The Pokémon Company is currently in the process of suing six Chinese gaming companies for copyright infringement in the form of the Pocket Monster Reissue game, which has been available on Huawei-run app stores.