Chinese gaming sector showing signs of healthy rebound

CHINA’S gaming sector has shown strong signs of a robust recover y this year despite tighter regulations, a new report said on Wednesday.

The highly lucrative market generated revenues of 233 billion yuan ($33 billion) this year, up 8.7 per cent on a yearly basis, said a report released by Chinese gaming database Gamma Data Corp.

Mobile gaming was the key dr iving force for growth, accounting for more than 150 billion yuan of revenue and for over 60 per cent of the Chinese games market. Mobile game revenues grew by 13 per cent on an annualised basis this year, compared to the 15.4 per cent increase in the same period a year ago.

“China’s gaming industry enjoyed rapid development during the past five years, on the back of an explosive growth in mobile games,” said Lu Xiaoyin, CEO of the games segment of Perfect World Co Ltd, a Chinese entertainment firm.

“Due to the slower growth in the number of mobile game players, the gaming market is gradually reaching a saturation point.”

Against the backdrop, gaming companies need to shift their focus from rapid expansion to refined management, paying more attention to highquality games and catering to players growing demand for new genres such as casual games, Lu said.

According to the report, China is now the global leader in mobile gaming and accounted for more than 30 per cent of the world’s overall mobile gaming market this year. Gamma Data expects to see a growing number of Chinese gaming companies expanding their business to more overseas markets.

Lu from Perfect World said that while the Chinese market tends to be saturated, the overseas mobile gaming markets are still poised for rapid growth.

“Personal computer games and console games were previously the main segments in the global gaming market,” Lu said. “Due to the rising popularity of smartphones globally, the number of mobile gamers has been growing steadily in overseas markets.”

In fact, overseas markets are now an important revenue earner for several Chinese gaming companies. Driven by strong increase in export earnings, gaming revenues from domestic market and export incomes jumped 10.6 per cent to over 310 billion yuan, the report said.

This year, Chinese developers earned $11.19 billion from their self-designed online games in overseas markets, up 16.7 per cent year-on-year, according to Gamma Data.

“With the disappear ing demographic dividend in the domestic market and the rapid development of overseas markets, Chinese gaming companies are gearing up to expand their businesses globally,” the company said.

In fact, many Chinese gaming companies have already been reaping the rewards.

The report said the self-designed mobile game turnover of Chinese companies is growing faster than that of the local market in countries like the US, Japan, South Korea, the UK and Germany.

“Taking into account the competitive advantages of their self-developed products, we expect Chinese gaming companies to gain more reve nues a nd d e v e l o p ment opportunities in the global market,” Gamma Data said.