More than 80 percent of China's 4 million apps are virtual zombies that never get the chance to be reactivated while the average lifecycle of an app is usually only around 10 months, according to research reported in Money Week.

Smartphone users in China reached 500 million in 2014, making the country home to the largest population of smartphone users in the world, driving the growth of apps covering a broad range of fields.

Despite a flood of investment, the app market is known for its high "death rate."

Some 85 percent of users will uninstall an app after one month and five months later those still in use only account for 5 percent, according to analyst Luo Yuanmei of iiMedia Research, a mobile Internet consulting firm.

Luo added that of any 100 dead apps, 35 percent fall in the category of social networking, which has the highest "death rate".

Analyst Li Zhi of information provider EnfoDesk said some apps are already dead before being put on the market and that most apps developed, nobody wants.

Adjust, a leading app analytics and attribution company, said in a report that 82.8 percent of all apps in the iOS App Store are "zombie apps", meaning they do not rank in top lists and are effectively invisible in app stores.

The report also shows the percentage of "zombie apps" reached 81.3 percent in China, the highest globally, possibly due to the relatively lower quality of app development.

Money Week said about 30 percent of apps are actually produced automatically by some software, and that app development teams meet many problems too.

A graduate from a renowned university in South China's Guangzhou, surnamed Jiang, led a team of five members to develop apps. After failing in several other projects, they are working on an application that allows users to comment on movies.

"Engineers come and go, and we make very slow progress," Jiang told the magazine.

Luo said China's apps usually generate profit in one of two ways: they are either paid for by the user or by embedded advertising. However, Chinese app users prefer a free model, making it hard for these profit-generating models to succeed.

Li added that 20 percent of apps generate 80 percent of the profit made on them.

It's easy to enter the market, but difficult to stand out due to fierce competition, an insider commented.