Feb. 3, 2012 -- With the explosive growth of the mobile Internet and the rapidly growing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers, Chinese governmental agencies are increasingly using application stores as a new platform for introducing China to the world.

Previously, China was lagged behind in Internet technology, and was merely following other countries. The rise of the mobile Internet industry has given Chinese software developers an unparalleled opportunity to reach an international audience.

Many applications developed by Chinese developers such as Netease Reader, Office Assistant, and War 2 Victory are vastly popular in various app stores. Chinese developers roughly developed 6 percent to 8 percent of all free and paid iOS applications.

Dolphin Browser, a Chinese-made mobile Web browser, ranked first in a list of the "Best Free iOS Apps of 2011" released by PCWorld magazine at the end of last year. By the end of June 2011, the browser had over 10 million users in North America alone, and was available in 20 languages, including Chinese, English, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. In addition, the browser's developer has set up an office in the United States.

According to statistics, there are 500,000 to 800,000 mobile application developers in China. "Chinese developers are likely to grab a 15 percent to 20 percent share of the global mobile applications market, whether it is measured by the number of applications or gross revenue," said Chen Haozhi, CEO of Beijing Touch Technology Company.