Happy New Year!

Happy Year of the Goat! – 羊年快乐！

We’re looking forward to an exciting 2015 and our 13th year of providing high integrity market intelligence reports and services on the Chinese and Southeast Asian digital games markets to clients around the world.

Supercell to Deliver In-Game Red Envelopes

Supercell, global powerhouse mobile game developer of Clash of Clans and Boom Beach, announced that it will deliver WeChat Hong Bao (red envelopes) in the game Boom Beach, becoming the first mobile game ever to send WeChat Hong Bao. The Hong Bao values will be 1 RMB, 8 RMB, 88 RMB and 188 RMB. There is a tradition in China to give a (physical) red envelope of money to children and others during the Chinese New Year holidays – and this is a digital representation of that within a mobile game.

Chinese New Year’s Movement Heatmap

Our friends at Tech in Asia have posted a cool “heat map” of the movement of humans in China as the Chinese New Year holiday begins today. Check out the cool graphic.

Xiaomi Beats Samsung in China

IDC says that Xiaomi has beaten Samsung’s market share in China, 12.5% vs 12.1% for all of 2014. Niko anticipates domestic mobile phone brands to dominate foreign brands in 2015. Also, Xiaomi has global aspirations and will launch mi.com in the US soon – its move to start sales in the US market.

Zynga Closes China Office

Zynga announced that it has officially closed its China office (which was in Beijing), and will lay off more than 100 Chinese employees. Zynga closed its office in Japan in 2013 and closed multiple US offices in 2014.

Singapore Offers 4G Island-Wide

Singapore is keeping pace with its technology prowess, and it seems that all three national telcos have achieved 4G coverage ahead of planned schedule. Singtel now covers most of Singapore with 4G, followed by M1 and StarHub. This is reported by Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority (IDA).