Niko's 2011 Southeast Asian Games Market Regional Report is out! Contact info@nikopartners.com to find out more or check out our store.

Indonesian regulators are taking a page out of the Chinese regulator's playbook by declaring that servers must be maintained domestically. Specifically, RIM, the maker of BlackBerry, by far Indonesia's most popular mobile phone brand, needs to put its BlackBerry Messenger and Internet servers in Indonesia. Currently they are located in Singapore. The Indonesian regulators see this as a threat to data safety, and therefore may need to shut down RIM's services domestically. 

According to a news item in the Marbridge Daily, the latest figures from China's Ministry of Commerce show that as of the end of November 2011, the government-sponsored "Old for New" home electronics subsidy program had sold 96.35 mln appliances, up 43.6% YoY, worth RMB 245.6 bln this year, up 63.7% YoY. Sales of TV sets were up more than 40% YoY, together with refrigerators, hot water heaters, and air conditioners accounting for 81.5% of total sales volume. Niko Partners contends that all of those new TVs are perfect for TV-based gaming, such as consoles or console-alternatives. Perhaps that is why Lenovo has two business units working on console-alternatives while China Telecom already demonstrated its version of one at a trade show in 2011. 

Niko Partners estimates that Vietnam has the highest games revenue among the six major Southeast Asian nation economies, as stated in our November 21 press release regarding our 2011 Southeast Asian Games Market Regional Report. This week Yahoo! has also released results of that company's research on mobile Internet usage in Southeast Asia, and the findings show that Vietnam has the highest spending per capita on mobile Internet as well. The average spending in Vietnam is $24 US per month, according to Yahoo!. The primary device is a cheap smartphone with advanced features including Internet access and multi-media entertainment. Game companies should take a closer look at Vietnam as a potential market.