Beyond Google Play: RuStore, AppGallery, and the New Android Store Map
Android distribution is turning into a portfolio decision. A field guide to the stores that now ship as device defaults, who actually needs each one, and how to keep a single campaign link working across all of it.
The one-store Android era is ending
For a decade, publishing on Android meant one thing: upload to Google Play and move on. That mental model is aging quickly. Regional stores now ship preinstalled on millions of devices, regulators on several continents are pushing distribution open, and Google itself is formalizing the rules for apps installed from anywhere else.
None of this dethrones Google Play. It does change the shape of the decision. Distribution used to be a checkbox; it is becoming a portfolio: which stores, in which order, for which audiences. Teams that treat it that way get to new users first. Teams that do not find out about the shift from a spreadsheet, as a slow bleed of clicks that never turned into installs.
This piece is the map. For the hands-on mechanics of routing one link across the App Store, Google Play, and AppGallery, we have a separate walkthrough; here the subject is the wider landscape and where each store actually fits.
The store map, store by store
Three stores define the current landscape. Each one is a default somewhere, which is the property that matters: a default store is where installs happen without the user going out of their way.
Google Play
- Reach
- Still the global default, and for most publishers still where the overwhelming majority of Android installs happen. Nothing below replaces it; the question is what you add alongside it.
- Default on
- Every Android device that ships with Google Mobile Services, which is most of the world outside the exceptions this article is about.
- Who needs it
- Everyone. Play remains the baseline of any Android distribution portfolio.
Huawei AppGallery
- Reach
- More than 580 million monthly active users, six million registered developers, and over a million users in 42 countries (Huawei, 2025). The device base underneath it is growing: HarmonyOS took 17% of the Chinese phone market in Q2 2025, ahead of iOS at 16% (Counterpoint Research).
- Default on
- Huawei devices without Google Mobile Services, where it is not just the default store but effectively the only one.
- Who needs it
- Anyone with a real audience in China, the Middle East, Turkey, Latin America, or any market where HMS devices sell in volume.
RuStore
- Reach
- Past 67 million monthly users, with roughly 100,000 apps from developers in 70 countries. The monetization signal is concrete: Chinese developers grew their RuStore revenue 18x year over year and now account for 76% of foreign promo budgets on the store (www1.ru, July 2026). Foreign publishers are not just listing there; they are earning there.
- Default on
- All Android phones sold in Russia, preinstalled by law since September 2025 (TASS).
- Who needs it
- Consumer apps and games with a Russian audience. For that audience, RuStore is now the path of least resistance to an install.
Worth a line, not a section
- Samsung Galaxy Store ships on every Galaxy device and matters mostly for games and Samsung-partnered promotions. Amazon Appstore is the default on Fire tablets and a niche everywhere else.
- In the EU, the Digital Markets Act has forced both Apple and Google to tolerate third-party stores and alternative install paths. The stores born from that opening are still small, but the regulatory direction is one-way: more legitimate install sources, not fewer.
The landscape in four numbers
monthly RuStore users, with the store preinstalled on Android phones sold in Russia since September 2025
TASS
monthly active Huawei AppGallery users across more than 170 countries and regions
Huawei, 2025
HarmonyOS share of the Chinese phone market in Q2 2025, ahead of iOS at 16%
Counterpoint Research
year-over-year growth in Chinese developers’ revenue on RuStore; they hold 76% of foreign promo budgets
www1.ru, July 2026
Who should bother, and in what order
A portfolio only makes sense if it matches your audience. Three honest calls:
When a store is preinstalled and yours is not on it, part of your audience cannot complete an install no matter how good the campaign is. The gap is structural, not a marketing problem.
Your buyers live on Google Play and the App Store. Revisit if DMA-era stores gain enterprise traction, but today the maintenance cost buys you very little.
Games teams led the migration to AppGallery and are leading it on RuStore, helped by the featuring slots and promo budgets alternative stores use to court them. If you ship games, this decision is not early anymore; it is current.
One link across the new map
Distribution mechanics: the listing is the easy part
Porting a build to a second store is a bounded, one-time project. The open-ended cost sits everywhere else: every ad, QR code, bio link, email footer, and printed package that quietly assumes Google Play is the only address on Android.
Here is what one campaign link has to do in 2026: send Huawei devices to AppGallery, Google-services Android to Google Play, iPhones to the App Store, and everything else to a landing page that carries all of your store badges. Appy routes the first three natively on every plan, and the mandatory web fallback catches the rest.
An honest note on RuStore: Appy does not route to it natively today. The pattern that works is the fallback itself. Traffic from RuStore-first devices lands on your web fallback, a landing page showing the RuStore badge next to the others, and the visitor taps through to the store. One link, one QR code, no dead end, and if native targets expand later, that is a settings change rather than a reprint.
The step-by-step setup for the natively routed stores is covered in our AppGallery routing guide; this article stays at the strategy layer.
The 2026 regulatory layer
Google’s verified-developer requirement rolls out broadly in March 2026, and from September 2026 verification becomes mandatory for sideloaded apps in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, per Android press coverage. The practical effect is that informal sideloading gets harder while identity-verified channels, which includes the established alternative stores, become relatively more attractive as distribution paths.
In the EU, DMA pressure keeps alternative distribution expanding. For planning purposes the two trends point the same way: the number of legitimate install sources is rising, not falling. Links and QR codes built on a routing layer absorb each new store as configuration; links hard-coded to one store absorb it as a re-run of every asset you have ever shipped.
Frequently asked questions
Is publishing on alternative stores worth the maintenance?
It depends entirely on audience geography. Start with analytics rather than opinion: the country and OS split on your existing links already shows how much of your traffic lands on HMS devices or Android in Russia. If those slices are measurable, the stores are worth it; if they round to zero, revisit in a year.
Does RuStore require a Russian legal entity to publish?
Publishing requirements change, and developers from 70 countries currently distribute on the store. Check RuStore’s current developer terms before planning a release rather than relying on any summary, including this one.
How do alternative stores affect app signing and updates?
Each store means a separate artifact, a separate review pipeline, and a separate update cycle, and some require their own signing setup. It is bounded work, but it is real work on every release. Budget for it before committing, not after.
Can one QR code really cover all of this?
Yes, and that is the routing-layer argument in one object. The QR encodes a link, not a destination; routing happens at scan time, and stores without a native routing target are covered by the fallback landing page with their badge on it.
Continue exploring
One Link for the App Store, Google Play, and Huawei AppGallery
A Google Play link is a dead end on a Huawei phone. Learn how one smart link routes every Android visitor to a store that actually exists on their device.
Mobile Attribution in 2026: What Still Works After Privacy Sandbox Died
Privacy Sandbox for Android is cancelled, ATT opt-in sits near 14%, and Safari strips click IDs by default. An honest map of the measurement mechanisms that still function in 2026 — and the order in which to rely on them.
Deferred Deep Linking Without an SDK: How It Actually Works Under the Hood
You can carry link intent across an app install without embedding an attribution SDK. What actually survives the store boundary on Android and iOS, what breaks, and what each workaround costs in privacy.
Looking for something else? Browse all topics on the blog.
Build the link before you build the portfolio
One Appy link routes the App Store, Google Play, and AppGallery natively on every plan, and its web fallback catches every store the map adds next.
Create a free smart link