China the place to be for mobile and tablet gambling apps?

The publication TechCrunch reports this week that China has the most cell phone users in the world, and according to mobile app analytics firm Flurry, its users are downloading apps more than ever before.

Flurry tracked international mobile app downloads across 120,000 apps from January to October 2011. Among other things, the company was able to single out the ten countries where apps sessions have increased the most.

While most of the counties on the list hovered between a 300 percent and 500 percent growth in app usage, China beat them all with a massive 870 percent surge in app usage sessions, making the country second only to the United States.

Flurry suggests the growth is principally due to falling hardware prices. Older model iOS devices have become more accessible thanks to depreciating value, and Android continues to appear on a wide array of devices with diverse, and mainly lower, price tags. Feature phones as a whole are becoming less prominent in China, and inexpensive Android devices are beginning to fill in that niche.

TechCrunch opines that China’s increased usage was almost certainly helped by the existence of multiple independent app stores. Among the myriad options available to users, big names like Motorola, Baidu, and Tencent all operate their own Android-friendly markets.

“Getting into China can be a bit of a rocky road for developers looking to tap a lucrative market, but it certainly seems to be well worth the effort,” the publication concludes.

Meanwhile, official stats from the Chinese Ministry for Industry appear to confirm the rising use of apps in China, with registrations at app stores soaring 50 percent to 150 million in the third quarter, and mobile ownership up 2.5 percent to a staggering 1.25 billion.