Niko News is a filter of the most important news items and bits of information concerning the games markets of China and Southeast Asia uncovered by Niko each week. Our multilingual analysts review dozens of news sources from several countries, and as a team Niko reduces the long list of articles to 3-4 "must read" items for you. We then provide our Niko analysis to these items, making them relevant and highlighting the importance for the market. This service is one of the many ways we help distill the confusing, conflicting information about the games markets of Asia for our clients and readers. 

Here is something that demonstrates the "wild west" environment in China's webgames segment. A smaller telecom company, Datang Telecom, announced it will acquire webgame platform Yaowan.com, operator of approximately 70 webgames. Yaowan, relatively unknown to westerners, has 1 million gamers, 570 RMB ARPU per month, and 863,000 active users. 

Tencent increased its investment in Kingsoft, and now holds 18% and is the second largest shareholder in the company. The increased investment cost Tencent $52.2 million. 

Lenovo, China's PC giant with by far the leading market share of branded PCs in China (and many other countries), has announced its new Game World Service for China. According to Bloomberg, Game World Service will provide functionality for discovery and gameplay to Lenovo users. The most important aspect is that this extends to Lenovo's mobile device business, and users will also get some games preloaded such as Fruit Ninja. Fruit Ninja, developed by Halfbrick Studios, is distributed and localized/culturalized in China by Shenzhen-based iDreamSky. That company is funded in part by the investment arm of Lenovo.