Ubuntu Kylin booms in China with over 1,300,000 downloads in less than

The Chinese love Ubuntu Kylin, a version of Ubuntu optimised for them.

Its popularity has built quickly with 400,000 downloads after its first release in April 2013 and a rise to over 1,300,000 new downloads after its second release in October. That’s impressive for a downloadable operating system since most consumers in China, the world’s largest PC market, as in other markets prefer to get their OS pre-installed when they buy a device.

The attraction of Ubuntu Kylin is its optimisation to the needs of Chinese users. It features full Chinese user interface and bespoke Chinese applications and integration such as Chinese music search from Baidu in the dash, Chinese lunar calendar, weather plugins and Kingsoft WPS, the most popular suite of office software in China.

The source of this successful localisation is our partnership with Chinese organisations: the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and China Software and Integrated Promotions Centre (CSIP). We developed Ubuntu Kylin together, along with the support of our enthusiastic and collaborative Chinese Ubuntu community.

Dr. Qiu ShanQinm President of CSIP explains, “Ubuntu Kylin is a professional open source community implementation based on Ubuntu for Chinese users, which offers users a secure, localized experience that will be updated frequently by the Joint Lab and community.”

With such strong initial growth, Ubuntu Kylin adoption is set to increase. Ubuntu already has a long standing presence in China. Canonical has been partnering for years with OEMs like Dell, HP and Lenovo to bring millions of Ubuntu pre-installed PCs to China. They are currently being sold online and across nearly 2,500 retail outlets in China.

Downloaded, or pre-installed on PCs one thing is clear: there’s a bright future in China for Ubuntu Kylin.

For more information/to find out more on Ubuntu Kylin, visit www.ubuntu.com/desktop/ubuntu-kylin-chinese and http://www.ubuntukylin.com/