Chinese Companies Hold 46% Mobile Phone Market In India

According to Counterpoint Research, Chinese companies were listed as four of the top five smartphone brands in India as of 2016. Vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo and Oppo (which is now leading the way in China) were the four brands eating up India’s market share. Samsung led the way, meaning that none of the top five companies were based in India.

World of Warcraft Gold Can Be Used in Other Blizzard Games

Blizzard is continuing to support their ecosystem (previously known as Battle.net) by allowing users to spend their gold earned in World of Warcraft on other Blizzard games – like packs of cards in Hearthstone, loot boxes in Overwatch or even downloading entire games like StarCraft II. We anticipate seeing more crossover in the Blizzard universe as they continue to tie these games together, such as with the recent release of another Overwatch character in their MOBA Heroes of the Storm announced this week.

Wii U Production Ends, Nintendo Switch Online Pricing Revealed

When the console ban was lifted in China in 2014, Sony’s Playstation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One were announced for the region with much fanfare. It remained a question mark as to whether Nintendo would bring their latest generation over and after having only sold 15 million in its lifetime, compared to the 100 million Wii units shipped, it appears that China will never officially receive the console. We do, however, expect the Nintendo Switch to come to the region and we will be following it’s launch closely next month. One remarkable difference so far: the Nintendo Switch online service will cost no more than $27 USD per year, which is less than half of an annual subscription to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Gold or Sony’s Playstation Plus.

Twitch Expands to Tabletop Gaming

Twitch announced last week that in tandem with Wizards of the Coast, they will be broadcasting 36 Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour competitions and other Magic focused events this year. The broadcast will showcase (in English and Japanese) four Pro Tours, the Magic World Championship, the World Magic Cup, the Magic Online Championship, and 28 Grand Prix events from North America, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. This is a notable step towards the table-top gaming space for Twitch.

Niko Partners on Twitter

Follow us on Twitter @nikochina to see these comments in real time as we publish them! @ZhugeEx is Niko analyst Daniel Ahmad – his opinions are his own and he has a very informative blog and Twitter feed. You can also find us on WeChat (ID: NikoPartners). Here are a few of our tweets from last week:

  • Dell Expands ESports Investments With ELeague Partnership
  • How Oasis Games is creating a console beachhead for Chinese game makers http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/08/how-oasis-games-is-creating-a-console-beachhead-for-chinese-game-makers/ … via @VentureBeat
  • Lionsgate makes another move into eSports
  • Life Inside A Shenzhen Hardware Accelerator https://www.fastcompany.com/3066987/innovation-agents/life-inside-a-shenzhen-hardware-accelerator … via @FastCompany
  • New AR Game Regulations in China https://nikopartners.com/new-ar-game-regulations-china/ …
  • McDonald’s Agrees to China Franchise Sale http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38552276 … via @BBC
  • Flipboard chases Chinese luxury market with launch of Flipboard China http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/10/flipboard-chases-chinese-luxury-market-with-launch-of-flipboard-china/ … via @VentureBeat
  • Lisa’s latest post to Forbes: China Doesn’t Go For ‘Pokémon GO’ via @forbes
  • Nice interview in the Financial Times by Niko’s Daniel Ahmad @zhugeEx last week