Smartphone love-in good for foreign firms

China has become one of the few truly mobile-first economies in the world, thereby presenting foreign app service providers huge opportunities, according to an industry insider.

"Chinese users didn't follow the typical pattern of going from PC to laptop to mobile but jumped straight to smartphones instead," said Christian Henschel, co-founder and CEO of Adjust, a mobile measurement and fraud prevention company.

"Meanwhile, more and more Chinese apps are going to the foreign market," he said. "All these present a huge amount of exciting opportunities, both to us and app marketers."