Prince Vajiralongkorn to Become Thailand's New King Thailand has begun the process of naming Prince Vajiralongkorn as the new king of Thailand, becoming King Rama X or the 10th king of the Chakri dynasty. According to the BBC, however, there has been a lot of uncertainty as Prince Vajiralongkorn wanted to postpone the process by at [...]
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej Passes Away The world's longest reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty, passed away this week at the age of 88. There will be at least 15 official days of mourning before succession can take place and then Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn will ascend to the throne. Currently [...]
Thai King Bhumibol's Health Unstable King Bhumibol has been on the throne of Thailand since 1946, making him the world's longest reigning monarch, but he has spent much of the last year in hospital. He has recently recovered from a respiratory infection and is now being prepared for haemodialysis, a procedure used to treat kidney failure. [...]
Taobao's VR Shopping Technology Taobao announced Buy+, a VR shopping technology, and says it will be launched in 4 months. With Buy+, the user can put on a VR headset, enter Taobao's VR version of their store, and then choose to shop at either 5th Avenue in NYC or an antique market in Britain. According to [...]
Xiaomi's Unmet Goals Gamelook reported that at Xiaomi's internal annual company party, CEO Jun Lei announced that Xiaomi has established an "exploring lab" to do research on cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality and robots/artificial intelligence. President Bin Lin announced that shipments of Xiaomi's phones reached 70 million units this year, although in early 2015 Xiaomi [...]
Chinese Mobile Gamers Gamelook cited Niko Partners research on Chinese mobile gaming in an article discussing how the domestic mobile games market will soon become the #1 market in the world, surpassing the US market revenue by the end of 2015. Market revenue has risen 6X in the past 4 years, and Niko's forecast for 2015 [...]
Niko Partners in The Economist The Economist published a Special Report on Pacific trade containing several short articles pertaining to China. Niko's Lisa Hanson was mentioned in reference to Tencent and the growth of the games market. The Battle to be China's #1 Video Platform This chart from China Internet Watch compiles data from iResearch comparing [...]
Niko Partners on CNBC Lisa Hanson was a featured guest on CNBC Asia on October 28th. The interview included lots of questions about mobile vs PC online gaming in SEA and China. For more updates, follow Niko Partners on Twitter. The 2014 China Rich List It pays to be a leader in an Internet, digital games [...]
Qihoo 360 Qihoo 360 is not one of the well-known Chinese PC online game operators, but it is a publicly traded (QIHU) internet services and security software provider that has several business units including value-added services that primarily encompass PC webgames and mobile games. 360 Assistant is a popular market for mobile apps. The company announced [...]
E3 2014 As we watch the news unfold from E3 this week, it's worth noting a few updates on the console front globally and in China - for the first time ever, Sony has overtaken Nintendo on the total number of game consoles sold within the span of a year. Sony sold 18.7 million consoles last [...]
