CES 2016 – Chinese Smartphones Dominate

CES 2016 displayed a wide range of Chinese Android phones as well as a contentious hoverboard. There was not much news reported about Chinese gaming devices however, except of course for the fact that Android phones are one of the most important gaming devices in the world these days. American companies also are still worried about patent infringement issues by the Chinese though, as demonstrated by a Chinese company booth selling hoverboards being raided by US Marshals who accused the company of patent infringement.

China’s E-Sports Trends

The Game Publishers Association Publications Committee (GPC) of China’s Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, and Gamma Data jointly released the “2015 China Mobile E-sports Industry Trend Report.” The report says that in 2015 revenue for mobile e-Sports reached RMB 5.97 billion ($907 million), with user base of 196 million, and should still have big room for growth. 2015 mobile e-Sports revenue rose from RMB 4.02 billion ($611 million) in 2014 to RMB 5.97 billion in 2015, and the user base has doubled. The demographic of mobile e-Sports users is very similar to that of PC e-Sports, with 67.92% of the users between 18-25 years old. PC eSports generated 21 billion RMB ($3 billion), so the total is 27 billion ($4.1 billion) with more than 100 million Chinese players.

On a related note, globally, the e-sports industry is getting big. Really big, as described by TechCrunch. More people watch Twitch than CNN. Riot, Valve,Activision-Blizzard and EA all have e-sports initiatives. The largest tournaments attract tens of millions of viewers and offer multi-million dollar prize pools for the best players in games like League of Legends and Dota 2.

Perfect World Returns to Chinese Equity Markets

In another case of a Chinese game company that was publicly traded on a US exchange going private and then reemerging on a Chinese exchange, Perfect World seems poised to be next in line. Perfect World Pictures will acquire 100% of Shanghai Perfect World Network Technology for RMB 12 million. The plan is to list the shares on a Chinese exchange.

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:

  • 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 …
  • 171 Chinese Game Companies Went IPO in 2015 https://nikopartners.com/171-chinese-game-companies-went-ipo-in-2015/ …
  • Tencent Now Owns 100% of Riot Games https://nikopartners.com/tencent-now-owns-100-of-riot-games/ …
  • Tencent’s empire is growing even bigger: Riot Games now owned entirely by Tencent http://www.polygon.com/2015/12/16/10326320/riot-games-now-owned-entirely-by-tencent?utm_campaign=polygon&utm_content=article%3Atop&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter … via @Polygon
  • Google Tests Out China’s Free Trade Zone https://nikopartners.com/google-tests-out-chinas-free-trade-zone/ …
  • Yeahmobi, a Niko client, put out an analysis of the Vietnam mobile Internet environment. Find it here: http://insidegamesasia.biz/vietnams-mobile-internet-environment-analysis-