Independent Chinese app developers face a struggle for survival in the domestic market, despite its size and growing revenue, as Zhang Yuchen reports from Beijing.

A gleam of hope may have lit up the eyes of independent mobile application developers in response to the news that 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio has officially earned his seat at the cool kids' table by selling his news-aggregator app, called Summly, to the tech giant Yahoo! for a reported $30 million in cash and stock.

The success of the UK-based high school student, who will also work for Yahoo! at its London base while he continues his studies, has encouraged a legion of small-scale entrepreneurs to create more apps.