|
|
Everything you need to know this week about the games market in Asia
|
|
|
Every week, our analysts review dozens of news sources, from multiple countries, in multiple languages. From this, we give you the stories that are most important, and the analysis to tell you why.
|
The CEO of NetEase, William Ding, announced the company's intent to develop competitive gaming in China via investment in "mianbo xingdong" ("bread campaign"). Look for a NetEase sponsored e-sports competition at the end of this year featuring some of the hottest competitive MMORPGs.
Meanwhile, as Marbridge Consulting reported in the Marbridge Daily, at the end of September NetEase will also launch a game competition linking Internet cafés in 100 cities across China and will promote the creation of competitive gaming clubs on college campuses across the country. Competitive gaming is very popular in China and in Asia. Recently the US government added competitive gaming as a sport and as a result gamers from other countries can come to the US on special visas to allow them to compete in local tournaments.
|
|
There are many dialects and languages spoken in China and there are 56 ethnic groups. When people talk about the "one child policy" they refer to a rule that applies only to the largest group, the Han, who make up more than 90% of the population. The minority ethnic groups are permitted to have more than one child, and even the Han may be permitted to soon as we wrote about in a recent newsletter.
We were surprised to learn however that China's Education Ministry reports that 30% of the Chinese population, or 400 million people, cannot speak the national language of Mandarin (Putonghua). As the Internet expands in the Tier 3 and 4 cities, and as Tier 5 cities come into modern facilities, it will be necessary for the content providers to understand that so many people in China cannot even speak the language. However, most people do read the same characters to have the same meaning, so "simplified Chinese" written language is likely understood by most of the population who are able to read.
|
As Tech in Asia reported last week, China Unicom's WeChat subscription plan was launched only a month ago and already has 1 million subscribers. The service provides a dedicated SIM card that allows users to access WeChat (Weixin) via the mobile web even if the user does not have a full 3G subscription with China Mobile. This shows the incredible strength of Tencent's mobile chat app that is taking China and increasingly other parts of the world by storm.
|
Tencent's M&A department representative shared his opinion of the booming mobile, webgame and PC online game segments in China in an interview published on Gamelook. He said that mobile has become a key driver of the global game industry's growth, and that China's mobile games growth of 50-100% in 2013 is faster than the worldwide average of 32%. Niko agrees that the mobile market in China is red hot, as we discussed in our recently published report on the topic.
Several articles came out in the past week regarding the data from our report.
|
ABOUT NIKO
Niko News is just one part of the strategy and expertise offered by Niko Partners to help our clients better understand and successfully navigate the thriving games markets of China and Southeast Asia.
Niko Partners is the leading provider of market intelligence, custom research, and consulting services focused on the games industries in China and Southeast Asia. Since 2003 we have provided critical information to the world's leading game publishers, developers, hardware makers, and game service providers as well as to government policymakers, trade associations, and institutional investors.
|
|
|
|
|
