China’s Mobile Users & Mobile Gamers

According to the most updated data from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the number of telephone users in China reached 1.54 billion households by the end of December 2015, of which mobile phone users accounted for 1.3 billion households and 4G users accounted for 386.2 million households. The user penetration of 4G users among total mobile phone users is 29.6%. Average mobile Internet data consumption per household has reached 389.3M, up 89.9% YoY.

According to the “The 37th China Internet Development Report” published by CNNIC in early January, as of Dec 2015, the number of online gamers is now 391 million, and makes up 56.9% of the total number of Internet users. The number of mobile online gamers is now 279 million of that 391 million, and this equals 45.1% of total mobile Internet users.

Southeast Asia Launches Tourism Plan

Southeast Asian tourism ministers on Friday launched a 10-year plan to ramp up marketing of their region as a single destination to raise tourism’s share of the regional economy to 15 percent by 2025.

The ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations also announced that they will begin a “Visit ASEAN@50” campaign to mark the 50th anniversary of the regional group next year. The campaign, to be launched in March at a travel convention in Berlin, will showcase hundreds of ASEAN tourism products, events and experiences and target people within and outside the region.

Guangdong’s Gaming Revenue

During the 2015 International Game Developer Conference (IGDC), the Guangdong Game Industry Association released the “2015 Guangdong Game Industry Annual Report.” The report shows that in 2015, Guangdong’s gaming revenue accounts for 72.1% of total gaming revenue in China and that among the Top 100 Chinese Internet enterprises, 10 are gaming companies from Guangdong. The report also projects that in 2016 Guangdong’s gaming revenue will reach RMB 120 billion ($18 billion).

Guangdong is China’s most populous province and is home to Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two important economic hubs for the country. In addition, these cities hold a high percentage of factories and factory workers live in dormitories, and they rely heavily on digital games as a source of low cost, easy access entertainment.

Star Wars Underperforms In China As Cultural Differences Emerge

Check out our latest article highlighting the reasons why Star Wars is currently underperforming in China and what we think the brand can do to improve its odds in the Asia region.

Niko Partners on Twitter

Follow us on Twitter @nikochina to see these comments in real time as we publish them! Here are a few of our tweets from last week:

  • Thailand’s Plans for Broader Internet Access https://nikopartners.com/thailands-plans-for-broader-internet-access/ …
  • Report: Top 1% holds one-third of China’s wealth http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0114/c90000-9003772.html …
  • My latest on Forbes: Culture Wars: Star Wars Underperforms in China & the Differences Emerge http://onforb.es/1KtLyVW http://onforb.es/1KtLyVW
  • Korean hit MMOG Blade & Soul launched in North America today: http://www.polygon.com/2016/1/19/10787810/blade-and-soul-launch-esports-pvp-announcement-update-level-50 …
  • Chinese Smartphones Dominate at CES https://nikopartners.com/chinese-smartphones-dominate-at-ces/ …
    Kabam sells off ‘classic’ mobile games to China’s Gaea to focus on bigger titles | GamesBeat | http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/07/kabam/ …
  • Vietnam economy grows at highest rate in five years http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Vietnam-economy-grows-at-highest-rate-in-five-year-30275980.html …