Chinese Apple fans can‘t buy apps on the AppStore unless they can pay with an international credit card in U.S. dollars. 

FruitNinja, one of the most popular apps for Apple mobile devices, sells for US$0.99 (about 6.39 yuan) on the App Store. But on many Chinese websites, the software can be downloaded for less than $0.15 (1 yuan), the National Business Daily reported.

Other popular apps such as GuitarToolkit, Plunderland and GalaxyonFire2 can also be found much cheaper on other Web sites, often at one-sixth of their App Store price.

Hot apps are widely available for sale on Chinese retail sites. A search for FruitNinja on Taobao.com, China‘s leading e-commerce platform, returned more than 2,600 hits.

The apps on the unofficial sites are often sold using gift certificates from Apple Inc. sent by e-mail, an online shopkeeper said. Consumers often get free gift tickets from Apple Inc. after they buy Apple products. These can then be sold on the market.

Other stores make use of another loophole: Users can download an Apple app an unlimited number of times after they buy it in the AppStore. So some buyers share their user accounts with others to make money, said Zhang Zhiming, head of a Shanghai-based IT company.

Chinese Apple fans can‘t buy apps on the AppStore unless they can pay with an international credit card in U.S. dollars. For Apple users without these cards, unauthorized sites offer a way around this barrier.

Apple China declined to comment on illegal app downloads in the country.

據《每日經濟新聞》報道，一款名為FruitNinja的游戲在蘋果（中國）AppStore上售價0.99美元（約合6.39元人民幣），在部分網店售價甚至不到1元人民幣。

此外，熱門游戲GuitarToolkit、Plunderland與GalaxyonFire2等也以低至原價1/6的價格出售。

很多熱門的蘋果應用軟件都可以在網店上找到。在淘寶上輸入“水果忍者”，可以搜到相關寶貝2600多件。

一位銷售蘋果app的淘寶網店店主向記者透露：app主要來源于蘋果公司內部流出的禮品券，以電子郵件方式進行傳送交易。這些禮品券基本上都是購買蘋果旗下商品回送的代金券。

此外，在AppStore上，一個消費者在開通賬戶并付費購買了一款應用后，原則上便可以無限次地下載這個應用。由于利益驅使，一些人便將賬戶共享給購買者使用，上海一家信息技術公司負責人張志明指出，

部分網友通過代購方式購買了AppStore內的應用程序。這些網友之所以要代購，是因為蘋果AppStore只接受國際信用卡美元付款。

對于蘋果應用在國內遭遇違規交易，蘋果中國公關部表示“對此事暫不予評價”。