The six major Chinese Android stores
There is no Chinese equivalent of Google Play — no single submission that reaches the market. There are six major stores run by six separate companies, and “we are live on Android in China” is a claim that needs a list behind it.
The six
| Store | Operator | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Huawei AppGalleryHuawei | Huawei | Runs on HMS rather than Google services. Its own push channel and its own account kit. |
| HONORindependent since 2020 | HONOR | A separate company since 2020, with a separate account system, separate review queue and separate push channel. Not a Huawei channel. |
| Xiaomi GetAppsXiaomi | Xiaomi | Very large install base and a reputation for being strict about permission usage and background behaviour. |
| OPPO App MarketColorOS | OPPO | Ships on ColorOS. The store where our own client’s version update was held back — see the case study. |
| vivo App Storevivo | vivo | Straightforward submission flow, and its own review interpretation of the same national rules. |
| Tencent MyAppTencent | Tencent | Broadest reach, and it feeds app links inside WeChat and QQ. For many products this is the store that matters most for distribution. |
What all six require
- A developer account opened against a mainland business licence
- The MIIT app filing for the app itself
- A Chinese privacy policy, and a declared third-party SDK list
- A working in-app account deletion path
- Store assets: name, description, screenshots, category, age rating
- Category qualification certificates where the category needs one
What differs between them
- Fees. Some charge for a corporate developer account; some are free. It changes over time.
- Review time. Anywhere from a couple of days to a few weeks, and it moves.
- Interpretation. The national rules are the same. What counts as compliance with them is not, and this is where most rejections come from.
- Qualification certificates. Which categories need one, and whose certificate is acceptable, varies by store.
- Push and account services. Each store’s operator has its own push channel — relevant if you are replacing FCM.
Why HONOR is not Huawei
HONOR was spun off from Huawei in 2020 and has been an independent company since. Separate accounts, separate developer portal, separate review queue, separate push service. Teams that plan for “Huawei and the rest” usually discover this at the worst possible moment — when one submission is live and the other is still sitting in a queue they did not know existed.
Live is not the same as latest version live
This is the distinction that causes the most confusion on both sides of the table. An app can be live on a store while the newest build sits in review, or has been rejected. Both statements are true at the same time, and the only honest way to describe the state is store by store, with version numbers.
It also means a rejection is not always a failed launch. If the version that is live was already accepted, a rejected update is a maintenance problem — annoying, fixable, and not the same class of crisis as a first listing that never went up.
How we run it
- Submit in parallel — six queues do not get shorter by being run one at a time.
- Track each store separately, with its own state and its own rejection history.
- Read each rejection against the specific clause cited, rather than assuming the same fix works everywhere.
- Keep the filing and account details current, because every store re-checks them at version review.
Want this applied to your product rather than in general?
A 20-minute call and a written readiness check will tell you which of these applies to you, in what order, and what it costs. No cost, and no obligation to proceed.
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