Chinese tool apps from outfit swaps Filters to calorie trackers now are among the top downloads in Southeast Asia, Latin America and beyond.
But the challenge looms. In markets with such different tastes, can they stay on top?
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Yang. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun in the studio.
First on today's show. Today, Chinese tool apps from one-click outfit changers that let you try new looks instantly to plant identifiers that tell you what's growing in your backyard. to calorie trackers helping you stay on top of your health. are topping download charts from Southeast Asia to Latin America.
But the playbook has evolved since the early days of the 2010s.
Rather than chasing one... all-in-one blockbuster app, developers are rolling out a whole portfolio of smaller niche apps, each solving a very specific real-life problem. before we dive into their global success let's clarify what constitutes a tool app I think you have already explained quite clearly about what is a tool app.
So they are that kind of lightweight Efficiency-driven applications designed to solve maybe very specific problems or boost productivity and they often focus on a single core functions such as As you said, health and wellness tracking, like detect and track your sleep, your fitness. records, annual calories, also identification apps like identifying the plants, animals or even objects like banknotes.
Also image and video editing apps. Like you can create a AI avatar.
You can have different filters. Have your lipsticks and eyelashes on just with a simple filter. and also document system utilities like your file cleaners, calculators, that kind of thing.
So by targeting clear user pain points with that kind of practical features, tool apps deliver simple yet highly effective solutions.
Yeah. I've never used a sleep app before.
Really? Yeah, I've never like a sleep tracker or anything like that because I have some like smart wearables so you gotta have that kind of apps to track and have that data of how long you sleep, what's the quality of your sleep, that kind of thing.
I mean, did you stick with Like checking it regularly?
Huh. I've never used one of those before.
I have used the Sleep Help app. It's a sound effect app.
And it's really cool. You can move the little ball on the screen and what, One sound would be like a river flowing and one sound, another might be thunder and then you can overlap them. to make it like a river thunder sound and it can kind of gently put you to sleep.
These very specific apps, are really, really useful.
And in recent years, these apps have expanded Overseas.
Yeah. Can I just bring just one more point here?
Initially, when we decided to do this topic i was feeling a little puzzled in the sense what's the point of highlighting tool apps?
Is it as opposed to your WeChat app, for example, that is super app that has so many functions that you can not only message, but you can buy train tickets, movie tickets, hail. a cab, trade stocks. buy insurance, all these different things.
And that's one type of app and maybe also opposed to as opposed to like social media apps.
These are not for kids. communication. So what's the point of highlighting that, OK, this is one small app, but oh, great.
It serves like one small purpose in life and people love it.
I think... to get a full picture of the story, we have to go back to 2008, right?
When Apple had its iPhone app store that launched in that year, This was like... the gold rush for Chinese mobile applications to go global.
The developers here in China, they really quickly recognized that there was a huge opportunity in front of them.
And they say, basically, if you made an app at that time, you succeeded.
You could survive no matter what you made.
But then things started to change, and if you jump forward to 2016, That's when that golden era ended.
And the challenges included, you know, there was a lot of homogenization, product homogenization, I mean.
There was huge competition within the market.
You had giant platforms like Facebook and Google tightening their ecosystems, they had stricter rules in place and they were regulating app monetization and that squeezed their profit margins and the number of apps that people downloaded before.
Back in 2008, I mean, people were down, your phone would be filled, absolutely filled With as many apps as you, it was exciting, right?
As many apps as you could get. But by 2016, this is from Vox.
The average American smartphone used downloaded zero apps per month.
Zero. by 2016. So I think the answer to your question is that the golden time of applications doing so many different things ended And now seems to be the time where the apps are doing super ultra specific things And people like that because they have super ultra specific things in their lives that need to be taken care of.
And also that's, I think part of reasons that these companies they understand what the market is.
And we know that there are so many like these super apps that have so many features in it but that's gonna like cost you a lot of money to build one And that could be very hard for a small company.
But these companies also need to survive, right?
And that is why Another, I think, channel is what these companies are following that is they go to that really, really specific and vertical track Vertical I mean very, I'm like, detailed specific needs of their customers.
So they are developing these small apps that can attract more Yeah, that's so interesting.
And could we go through the details and perhaps some of the examples. of referring to the period that the golden the gold rush period that Steve mentioned, from 2008 to 2016, And bear in mind, it's not just iPhone users, but in China, like those developers really rushed into the market was like the great Wild West, right?
No rules established and let's just grab a piece of the gold rush and there are lots of Android, apps as well.
And what were the ones? the winners of that period that not only became well-known here in China, but these apps were already popular overseas in that period of time.
Yeah, so in 2010, an app called GoLauncher from Guangzhou-based tech company Gomo became a breakout hit.
It is a kind of customizable Android home screen app that let users personalize their phone's interface, which means basically I think launcher app is quite popular back then. especially when people are using Android phones because you can customize different Gadgets or widgets widgets.
Yes, and then you can have different size of them and different like wallpapers and different features of your home screen and in that way because back then you have that like fixed desktop, Android phone.
But if you have that kind of launcher app, You have so many, so many options to change your icons and something like that.
You're personalizing it, right? Yeah. That was such a huge hit for that company.
In two years, it had nearly 240 million global users and about 42 million monthly active users that was just a that was a smash success they won the lottery with that one yeah and also another field in 2013 clean master from cheetah mobile launched strongly a mobile cleaning and optimization tool and that can clear your junk files and boost your performance of your phone.
Within a year, it skyrocketed to 140 million active users.
And another one in 2014, Meitu, known for its beautification and photo editing apps. begin its international expansion and just in one year its overseas users exceeded 500 million.
Yeah, and Meitu is still so well known in China and Internationally.
And hold your breath, right? It's got this newfound popularity.
Should we see a revival of its popularity internationally?
So please update us. What are the latest development of Chinese tool apps overseas?
Yeah, so in July 2025, tool app publishers constituted a strong 50%. of the top 30 Chinese non-game publishers by overseas revenue, according to media reports.
One example is Enerjoy, a Beijing-based company has quietly achieved an astounding annual revenue exceeding $50 million from just six health related apps focused on features like sleep, fitness, mental health and calorie tracking.
Another one, Ray T Software's planned identification app.
You know, a picture of this. Yeah. generated close to 100 million yuan in revenue in May alone in 2025. yeah some of these some of these are surprising aren't they i mean some of them make sense With the whole health and fitness boom, so sleep trackers and... fitness helpers or whatever you want to call them, mental health.
These ones are maybe not that surprising, but 100 million yuan in revenue in one month. for an app that can identify plants is pretty impressive.
It's not this one I have, but I have another.
I have one. I have a plant identification app on my phone.
And we've talked about this on the show.
Yeah. And you use it for things, you know, like everybody loves their plants, right?
But you, not just to identify what type of plant it is, but also if the plant seems to be a little bit sick.
You can take a picture and write. You can get some help with that as well.
Here's another really popular one. There was a Chinese team that launched a file scanner.
It was called Scan All-in-One. and they achieved $200,000-plus in a single day in terms of revenue.
There was another example. I mean, there's a long list of examples here.
Just one more. There was another team. They had their smart calculator.
That saw over 2 million monthly downloads in Brazil.
So again, some of these we'd expect and some of them are surprising, but they all seem to be doing really, really well.
Yeah, the penetration rate is on the trend of increasing mobile app data analytics company sensor towers data. shows that in Southeast Asia, as you mentioned, He Yang, Chinese tool apps lead the market accounting for 36% of installations in Vietnam.
33% in Cambodia and 30% in Indonesia. Yeah, really impressive penetration rates.
And also one can help but notice that these are more like the emerging markets Internationally, we're not necessarily looking at the traditionally English speaking US market, UK market as such, but it's... maybe one can argue that we're looking at a global scene right and The different markets, they have different rules.
They have different tastes. and on the global stage is really which app, which company can truly serve your target audience.
And these are the winners, no matter which country are you originally from.
I mean, yeah, it depends on the app and it depends on the part of the world, right?
For example, Maytool, you mentioned it before.
That's the app that specializes in kind of beauty enhancement.
I have, I have this on my phone too. I don't know why I have this.
Maybe for a previous discussion, doing research.
Sure, let's go with that answer. Yeah, you can enhance your features when you take a picture.
Anyway, their data shows that their one-click outfit change feature That propelled its camera app to number one on the App Store in about 10 Southeast Asian countries. and category number one in photography and video in 15 countries and regions.
But there we're talking Japan, Korea, the States, the UK, and Indonesia.
It really is global. So guys, why are these tool apps such a big hit overseas and I think you probably probably need to break it down market to market because Sometimes multiple markets have a shared preference or purpose,
But not always. First of all, the nature of these apps, they are quite easy.
They are simple. They're lightweight, as I mentioned it. so they offer highly efficient and practical core functions and As Steve just said, these are just apps that can make your phone so much more functional. would say and it can makes your phone to be not only your phone it can be a like a professional camera your scanner that a lot to do a lot of daily things and and this makes them inherently capable of crossing cultural barriers without extensive localization efforts because they're just easy and simple yeah because there's no need right like if you're opening I don't know, let's say a restaurant for example.
Well, you're going to want to cater to local tastes to at least a certain degree.
So you do need some sort of localization effort.
But if you have an application that is one-click outfit change, Well, there's no cultural barriers there.
There's no boundaries that need to be crossed, right? people don't care where the app is from what they care is what the app can do and that makes it all the more powerful to people, right?
Yeah. I really like the function of... creating a digital signature using an app, for example, because I'm sure uh folks around the world will encounter oh sometimes you've been asked to sign a contract or a formal document on the internet and you don't know how to do it easily and do it in a way that is the other party can trustworthily accept. this was a few years ago, actually, when I realized, well, in China also, you know, these things are just so incredibly, incredibly convenient. that even within a embedded micro mini program on WeChat, see, we don't even need the separate small app.
But anyway, you can do it so easily. And And sometimes you just have to give it to the developers and No wonder they're the winners when they can sort of realize that very... it could be quite small but specific need of large swaths of the population but As I always do, seem quite critical when it comes to technology, though one day these app developers can truly impress me is when my phone can become a knife or something like that.
You call it practical tools. I think there are still plenty of interesting ways or territory that these developers can sort of explore because it is a very interesting notion, isn't it, that Yeah, it can go beyond social media. texting friends or doing all these things that's virtual, but it can actually have something to do with your real life hands-on needs kind of thing.
Yeah. So this is what the tool apps are essentially catering towards, right?
And well, yeah, I mean, you have your ruler apps, your calculator apps, and those are You know, OK, that's one aspect of your life.
But the other aspect of your life for many is the creative side.
And some of these apps, I have two apps on my phone.
They're from Chinese developers and I had no idea.
I didn't even know they were, I'm in China and I didn't know they were developed in China.
These are video editing tools. These are AI-powered video editing tools.
And what these apps do... is they take the power of a movie studio and put it in your hand.
It's incredible. One of the apps that I'm talking about, it's the app that everybody uses these days in America as well. you know, for their social, social media videos that they upload and their editing and the,
The cool transitions and the stickers and the effects and all that stuff. that's all capable from this app and This is something that everybody's using today that it unlocked. an ability for people that usually was only for studios before.
It's incredible. Yeah that actually reminded me of one point of localization We mentioned that some of these apps, they don't need that much of localization.
That's why they can be successful. I think another thing is that they can localized so well that make you don't even realize they are from China and they are just being they can the interface can be very let's say international or just so authentic and take cater to the local people's taste, I would say, because in some areas, let's say like short video, special effects, or like beauty cams.
Different people from different regions have different tastes in these kind of areas, right?
So... they are of course they do a lot of marketing yeah and research that's a good that's a good point there is some sort of localization happening there too And also, Hyoyoung, you mentioned about how markets are different.
It's true in the sense that In more mature markets, maybe if you look at Europe and the Americas, Those markets show a higher willingness to pay for quality digital services.
So that could lead to pretty strong profitability in those particular markets for these app makers.
Yeah, and that's the first overseas markets that a lot of these app developers were aiming at, but it's also difficult to penetrate some of these markets given local tariff or other kinds of rules and therefore these companies are really you know, looking overseas and looking at the great wild world out there and see where their opportunities land.
And what are the challenges and perhaps risks for these Chinese tool apps going global?
Intensifying market competition is of course one of the biggest challenges for these companies.
Since we're talking about these easy, simple apps, it is quite easy for other companies to, or your competitors specifically, to create a same or similar app to compete with you.
So apps with simple functions, are easy to imitate and hard to protect from copying and also user retention is quite challenging.
You know, tool apps are naturally have that kind of like a user trait of people just use and leave. requiring continuous feature innovation or membership systems to retain more users I bet exercise apps get a lot of that use and leave use and Sign up and leave, sign up and leave.
I bet that's a big thing there. Yeah, and this shows that even with innovative technology and global strategy, there's no shortcut. to lasting presence, adaptability, Continuous innovation and sensitivity to local preferences are essential for survival.
Looking ahead, where is the business going?
How are AI subscriptions and specialized apps, shaping the next phase of Chinese tool apps going abroad.
One thing is I think marketing or promotion will have some bit of change because what we can see is that a lot of these apps are using different ways or shifting to video-based promotion to become popular.
One thing is that we know that TikTok has become a very crucial platform for user acquisition because it's massive global user base.
And one example is that a photo editing app shifted from direct advertising, let's say just place advertisements on other apps. but they shifted to like creating authentic or videos. on these short video platforms to attract more users. and that leading to like target user discussions and interactions.
And that strategy resulted in nearly 20,000 App Store clicks and over 50,000 business account visits.
Such a smart move that makes so much sense.
I mean, when was the last time, you think about a static advertisement, right?
I don't know, I think 20 years ago or even today, I guess you open up a magazine and you'll see an advertisement there on a page, right? but that seems so archaic for people now.
When was the last time you actually looked at a static advertisement and checked out all the details to see what the product does.
Probably not that often. I myself, when I see a static advertisement.
Of course, the advertisement tries its best to explain all about the product.
Sometimes I just look at the product. I don't know what it is. immediately and I'm gone I'm gone within two seconds when you make a video where you have a representative explaining what the product does, why it's beneficial to your life.
It's just so much more effective. And just taking advantage of the tools that are available to advertisers these days. yes indeed the future belongs to apps that go beyond utility that anticipate user needs and personalized solutions.
It's a shift from reactive tools to proactive companions, perhaps, in our digital lives.
