Right now the hottest mobile app in China is MYOTee, a cartoon avatar creator with dozens of options. In only a couple of days, it has been downloaded more than a million times !
The app got hot earlier this month around China’s Dragon Boat Festival holidays (May 31-June 2), when over a couple days it has been downloaded more than a million times, according to a QQ report. It hit the top of Apple’s free app ranking in China, according to Technode (TechCrunch partner in China).
To get started, users only have to tell the app whether they are trying to create a male or female avatar. Then users can select from a wide variety of built-in templates for different parts of the face. More templates for detailed categories are added, including glasses, clothes, hats, habits, backgrounds and talking bubbles. Users can order T-shirts with the customized cartoon avatar front and center if they wish.
MYOTee began as a T-shirt company using the designs of a Hong Kong artist. You created a cartoon and printed it on T-shirts, mugs, wrist bands, even a watch. Last year a former Tencent employee decided to move it into the app space….”80% of our success is simply because we are lucky,” said MYOTee founder Guo Lie. MYOTee scored 5 million new users in 5 days and more than 20 million users in 6 months after operations.
Luck, really ? Although this kind of cartoon image editor is nothing new to us, given previous killer apps, like MomentCam, Bitstrips and iMadeFace – I believe a major differentiator of MYOTee is its cute cartoon style given the company background in design, these “pop star” avatars definitely captured a lot of Chinese teens’ hearts – as well as the easy way to share your avatar across all major Chinese social networks, such as Sina Weibo, WeChat, etc… to spread the word among friends.
Play the app @ You can download the game on iTunes – here
And on Google Play – here
As a final note, the company has received funding from International Data Group and is seeking a second round of funding, according to Technode.
Source: Fortune, Technode, Shanghai’s China Business News
