One Company’s Obsessive Quest to Crack China’s $8 Billion Mobile Games Industry

The founders of smartphone games studio Dots are determined to break into China’s lucrative, maddening market. If China doesn’t break them first. Read more about Dots’ adventure into China in this latest article from Inc., including quotes from Niko’s Lisa Hanson. The article is also available in print.

China’s New Film Laws to Promote Socialist Core Values

A new law in China emphasizes the creation of content that promotes China’s “core socialist values” and enriches people’s spiritual and cultural life. Subjects that are no longer welcome include content that opposes the law, content that opposes the constitution, harms national and/or ethnic unity, exposes national secrets, harms Chinese security/dignity/honor/interests or spreads terrorism/extremism. This also includes stricter rules for actors and film-makers, who must have “excellent” moral integrity and “self-discipline,” according to Xinhua. As we have also noted throughout the year – this also gives China a chance to crack down on falsified box-office data, which has become a widespread problem.

Southeast Asia’s PC online and mobile game revenue to more than double to $3.3 billion by 2020

Our most recent report was highlighted on VentureBeat – Southeast Asia’s game market is on a growth spurt. The region’s PC online and mobile game revenue is expected to grow more than double to $3.3 billion by 2020, not to mention that mobile game usage and revenue are expected to overtake PC online games by 2018. You can view our table of contents for the new report in our research store.

Upcoming VR Intelligence (VRX) 2016

If you are interested in the VR-Intelligence conference in San Francisco December 7-8, please use this code: 4715NIKO to get the 10% saving on either Basic or Business Passes listed here.

Alibaba’s New Single Day Records

Within 5 minutes, Alibaba posted $1 billion USD in sales on Singles’ Day, the biggest shopping day in the world. According to Bloomberg, “Sales on its e-commerce platform reached 102 billion yuan ($15 billion) shortly before 8 pm in China, easily topping last year’s total of 91.2 billion yuan with about four hours left to run. Dwarfing both America’s Cyber Monday and Black Friday, the 24-hour online promotion is closely watched for clues on the health of the economy and its largest online retailer.” Just let those numbers sink in.

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. Here are a few of our tweets from last week:

  • Alibaba sold $1 billion of products in the first FIVE minutes of Singles Day 2016! Mind bending.
  • It is a good day to consider going overseas! Read this article on Niko’s SEA games mkt analysis from our new report.
  • I’m glad to be one of the people interviewed in Inc. Check out the wisdom from several experts within this article.
  • We know that Overwatch is red hot in SEA: ATVI reports record-setting Q3 earnings on the back of key franchises
  • My latest post on Forbes regarding Western sports in China and possible subsequent new digital games sales there
  • iPhone 5S selling better than other smartphones in Vietnam http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/science-it/163196/iphone-5s-selling-better-than-other-smartphones-in-vietnam.html …
  • Amazon Showcases Twitch With a Massive Free Videogame https://games.slashdot.org/story/16/10/17/011244/amazon-showcases-twitch-with-a-massive-free-videogame … via @slashdot