Firms seek profits by inflating Apple app ratings

(Ecns.cn) – Qihoo 360, a leading Chinese software company with a large user base, said on Thursday that its products were available for download again after being removed from Apple's App Store for a number of days, according to the Beijing News.

The decision to take down Qihoo 360's applications was made on February 4 due to unusual user rating activity, reports said. Apple has long been against using download bots or other methods to puff up reviews and downloads, but this was seen as an unusually severe reaction from the company.

Qihoo 360 has since cleared up the case and plans to file a lawsuit after it confirms the source of the rumors, but the incident has nevertheless aroused widespread speculation about user ratings at Apple's App Store.

Business opportunity

Hiring "Internet mercenaries" to inflate reviews and boost downloads of a product – as well as making malicious comments about competitors – has become an open secret in mobile applications, said Zhang Yi, CEO of consulting firm IIMEDIA Research, who spoke with China Business News on Wednesday.

According to him, many Apple application developers are using every means available to boost their user ratings, and the quickest and safest way is to pay professional companies that use advertising applications and cheat user ratings.

Zhang estimated that there are currently at least 300 of these companies, which work for different marketplaces for mobile software. Among Apple application developers, up to 30 percent have tried to seek help from such companies, and about 70 percent have attempted to manipulate public reactions to their products, Zhang added.

An unnamed insider revealed that some of the more developed companies can earn more than 1 million yuan (US$158,900) in profits every year.

Apple became the second-largest smartphone vendor in the world last year, with more than 93.2 million units shipped and sales up 128 percent from 2010. In China, iPhone products are becoming increasingly popular, which means more business opportunities for companies seeking profits through the manipulation of user ratings.

Perfect disguise

"Improve your user ratings in three hours! You name it, we achieve it!" So reads the advertising slogan of a large company that services Apple application developers by hiring people disguised as ordinary netizens to post comments and rankings to affect public opinion.

The company started out as an Internet marketing service in 2005, and has provided service to major clients such as Taobao, Vancl and MCOX. Since 2009, however, it made a vital strategic change by shifting its focus to user ratings for Apple application developers.

Now, five of the company's clients are among the Top 30 applications at Apple's App Store. It has also successfully promoted more than 100 products to the Top 100 Free Applications list. (Of those, a single application has even been downloaded 1.2 million times in a day.)

According to an insider, the company's services are provided with the absence of download bots or similar easy-to-detect methods. Instead, the company only uses Internet mercenaries to achieve its objectives, which allows it to avoid Apple's strict scrutiny.

Regarding the cost of such services, a staff member revealed that a single download record costs 0.8 yuan (US$0.13) for products aimed at daily downloads between 10,000 and 20,000 times, and 0.73 yuan (US$0.12) between 20,000 and 30,000 times, and 0.68 yuan (US$0.11) for over 30,000 times. If they need complimentary comments, a single user's favorable review costs 2 yuan (US$0.32).

Plight of application developers

While business opportunities give much hope to companies providing such services, Apple application developers are struggling to survive the market.

If a product does not win support for its outstanding design and content – and at the same time does not get enough favorable reviews or high ratings – it may sink to the end of a seemingly infinite list at the app store.

However, if a developer tries to promote an application in abnormal ways, he must spend a certain amount of money first without guarantee of positive results.

Under such circumstances, those who choose to get high ratings are usually large-scale developers with solid financial backgrounds, while self-employed developers struggle to get their products known.

According to statistics released by IIMEDIA Research, as of last November there were about 1 million mobile software developers in China, and 64.5 percent of them had suffered losses.

Currently, the desire to achieve quick success and get instant benefits is putting the growing mobile software market at risk. Instead, developers should focus more on their strengths and capabilities. Making profits through abnormal methods to get high ratings can only lead to a vicious circle, and may have a negative impact on the market in the long run.