Qualcomm Invests in Chukong Technologies

Qualcomm hosted a press conference in Beijing, announcing that it will risk invest in Chukong Technologies and three other companies, totaling $40 million. Chukong Technologies is famous for the game Fishing Joy. Last month Chukong also received strategic investment from the biggest mobile game company in Japan – GungHo.

China Will Surpass 500 Million Smartphone Users This Year

Here is a news item from eMarketer, regarding the number of smartphone users in China in 2014 (the forecast is for 519.7 million.) – “eMarketer’s recent projections for global smartphone usage highlight how mobile connected devices are quickly becoming the preferred internet access platform for populations around the world, and developing nations in particular. With estimates of 519.7 million users by the end of the year, China will have more smartphone users than the next seven countries on the list combined. Which adds some context to Tencent’s recent emergence as China’s most valuable brand, as WeChat is the dominant mobile platform and provides the company with enormous potential as a gateway for mobile commerce, payments, gaming, location-based services, and much more.”

Tencent Investments

Tencent Holdings has started a series of investments in Japan. The first step is to the capital injection in Aiming, a Japanese online game developer. Tencent didn’t announce the detailed amount and proportion, but it is less than 50%. Tencent also invested in a fund newly founded by a Japanese VC called Incubate Fund. Tencent Wechat’s current MAU has reached 468 million. Our friends at Techinasia have also provided a great list of everything Tencent has invested in or acquired this year.

Google Play Time Shanghai

Google hosted a “no media developers only conference “Google Play Time Shanghai”, introducing the service Google can provide, including App testing tools, optimization suggestion, submission, review, distribution, etc., as well as Google Analytics tools. In the past, Google Play had not provided any support services to Chinese app developers, rather they were only able to submit free apps to Google, or register as developers from another country. Now Chinese developers can actually submit paid games to Google Play.

PS4’s Launch in China

PS4 is going to China on January 11th, according to Sony’s press conference in Shanghai. The PS4 will be sold alongside Xbox One as the JV partners for both products announced that they will merge. Microsoft’s Xbox One was launched in China in September 2014.