According to the China Daily last week, the CNNIC's most recent report on Internet usage in China revealed the following. The number of Internet users in China hit 513 million by the end of December 2011.The Internet penetration rate rose to 38.3 percent, up four percentage points from the end of 2010, increasing by 55.8 million Internet users.The number of mobile phone Internet users also increased, reaching 356 million by the end of December 2011, up 17.5 percent from the previous year.

According to a recent article on Sina.com, China's mobile Internet revenue increased 100% in 2011 and is poised to grow by 150% in 2012, led by revenue from mobile games. Not only is smartphone penetration rising and 3G networks (or faster) are in use, but most of the online game companies in China are endeavoring to launch mobile games so competition is getting fierce. As always, Niko will watch this important segment of the games market for our clients in 2012.

There is a ban on new online game licenses in Vietnam that has been in effect for more than one year. The Ministry of Information and Communications is the regulatory body that issues both licenses and the ban. There are ways around the ban, such as launching a web game rather than a client-based game, or even launching the client-based game on a server outside of Vietnam. This all begs the question of when the ban will be rescinded and what its true purpose is, though the ministry has stated that violence was one of the offense content areas it was trying to eliminate from licensed games.