Google's fitness app climbs to top of China rankings

Google Inc.'s fitness application has climbed to the top of rankings in China, making the country its most-successful market since being released last month.

Google Fit, which tracks activity and connects to health- monitoring devices, debuted late last month at No. 24 on the Android charts in China. On Nov. 1, the app reached the top ranking in the country and has stayed there since, according to App Annie's Distimo analytics service. The app peaked at 69 in the U.S., 38 in the U.K. and 272 in Japan.

Google in June unveiled its "Google Fit Platform," a software suite that connects compatible apps and Android Wear devices, allowing a user to track activity and fitness data. While Google's search service is unavailable in China, its Android operating system dominates the market ahead of Apple Inc.'s iOS.

Google doesn't operate its own application download store in China, with Android apps distributed by third parties, said Robin Moroney, a Singapore-based spokesman for the Mountain View, California-based Internet company. He declined to comment on why the Google Fit app is at the top of the charts.

Google Fit tracks activity while also acting as a single application to collate data from other apps and external hardware. It had an average 4.1 out of five star rating from more than 40,000 user rankings on Google's Play store as of 5:30 p.m. in Taipei.

Android had 83.4 percent of the China smartphone market in the third quarter, ahead of 15.2 percent for iOS, according to Kantar WorldPanel ComTech data.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Tighe at mtighe4bloomberg.net Suresh Seshadri, Young-Sam Cho