10 must-have apps for living/traveling in China

1. Meituan

https://www.meituan.com/

Food guide, takeaway online ordering, hotel reservations, tour group buying, air tickets, train tickets, movie tickets, ktv all! Shop information query, merchant rating/evaluation one-stop life service website.

2. Amap

https://www.amap.com/

Traveling freely in unfamiliar cities, mobile maps are indispensable! Even if you are separated from your family, you can find the route by opening this APP. You can browse the historical route when you are offline to help you find your destination smoothly~

3. Little Red Book

https://www.xiaohongshu.com/

Where to find travel guides? Where to write travel notes? Of course, it is Xiaohongshu! This app is today’s most popular community sharing app, whether it’s good things sharing or travel guides, there are all here~

Xiaohongshu, also known as RED is a social media and e-commerce platform. It was created by Miranda Qu & Charlwin Mao in June 2013. By July 2019, Xiaohongshu says it has over 300 million registered users, with 70% of the users born after the 1990s (or Generation Z), 80% of the users are females. The number of monthly active users is over 85 million. The app allows users and well-known personnel to post and share product reviews, travel blogs, and lifestyle stories via short videos and photos. Xiaohongshu also operates RED Mall, which sells international products to Chinese users.

4. Qunar

https://www.qunar.com/

Qunar is China’s leading travel search engine. Qunar is the world’s largest Chinese online travel website. It was founded in February 2005 and is headquartered in Beijing. Qunar.com provides consumers with the real-time search of air tickets, hotels, venues, and vacation products, as well as group purchases of travel products and other travel information services, and provides online technology and mobile technology solutions for partners in the travel industry. Now the “Qunar.com” contains several major channels such as hotels, air tickets, group purchases, vacations, train tickets, guides, travel maps, and vacations.

5. Didi Travel

https://www.didiglobal.com/

Didi Travel is a mobile application based on the sharing economy that can be used to reserve or share transportation at a certain point in the future on the mobile phone. At first, only taxis could be reserved. Later, it has developed to be able to reserve express trains, gift orange cars, ride-hailing rides, proxy driving, test drives, and even carpooling. By cooperating with multiple third-party payment providers, users can conveniently take taxis and pay on their mobile phones. As of 2018, Didi Travel has 550 million users, making it the world’s largest travel service platform.

6. Airbnb

https://www.airbnb.com/

If you want to experience a local homestay, then this app can help you~ As the world’s largest homestay platform, many homestays on this app are also decorated very delicately and refreshingly~

7. Youdao Translator

https://fanyi.youdao.com/

Choose to travel abroad on holiday? Then this app is a must! This app includes translations in 107 languages, including Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. Bringing it is like bringing a professional translator. You don’t have to worry about which country you go to!

8. Ctrip

https://ctrip.com/

Ctrip. com-Reassured service, assured prices, a comprehensive upgrade of services; Ctrip provides one-stop professional reservation services for hotels, air tickets, bus tickets, routes, tickets, car rentals, visas, corporate business travel…

9. WeChat

https://www.wechat.com/

WeChat is the most popular instant messaging software used by Chinese people. It can chat, transfer files, and establish an effective network of contacts. WeChat can also be used for video calls, voice calls, etc. It is very suitable for voice communication when there is no other party’s phone number and only WeChat.

10. Alipay

https://www.alipay.com/

Alipay, a third-party payment platform in Mainland China, was launched on October 15, 2003. It was originally a division of Taobao.com, a website of Alibaba Group, and officially operated independently on December 8, 2004. At present, Alipay has evolved from a single payment tool to an open platform that provides payment, life services, government services, social networking, financial management, insurance, public welfare, and other scenarios and gradually covers the entire industry.

Alipay overtook PayPal as the world’s largest mobile payment platform in 2013. As of 31 March 2018, the number of Alipay users reached 870 million. It is the world’s number one mobile payment service organization and the second-largest payment service organization in the world. According to the statistics of the fourth quarter of 2018, Alipay has a 55.32% share of the third-party payment market in mainland China, and it continues to grow.