What are the real trends in China's mobile game market

As we all know, the Chinese game market is huge (far more than Japan)! But how much do you really know about the game in the Chinese market? How is it different from the United States? Can you make money in China? Who is the winner in the region?

1. China is a huge game market

Maybe this is obvious, but until you get involved in this area, you still can not understand the huge and rapid growth of the Chinese gaming market.

In 2012, China became the world's largest mobile market with more than 1 billion mobile phone users. Flurry report pointed out that in March this year, China has topped the world in iOS and Android activation. App Annie reports that China ranks second only to the United States for iOS apps. Based on this rate of growth, China will soon be the number one game downloads.

2. The income level is relatively low

Unfortunately, the level of revenue did not increase significantly with the download volume. China's smartphone game revenue this year was 1.5 billion yuan (about 2.5 billion US dollars, 1 US dollar = 6.3 yuan), is expected to be raised to 5 billion yuan in 2013. This is a huge number of pen, but compared to the same period of the smartphone market size and game downloads, the value is still relatively low. This involves two major issues, the first is the economic issue.

China is a rich country with a growing middle class, but most Chinese still can not afford the movie fares. If this phenomenon can not be changed, most people will continue to experience the game for free.

Followed by cultural issues. This time I visited a large number of Chinese game developers and players. They generally believe that Chinese people really enjoy free access to mobile content, especially to young people. This generalization is obvious, and while people in almost all parts of the world prefer free content, it is especially notable in China. Many people said that Chinese users will be proud to find channels for obtaining free content, and they will show off and share with friends. So, the hottest apps in China right now are Apple App Store apps, which you get for free without a jailbroken phone.

china-mobile-android-app-store (from gamezebo)

3. In the Chinese market, Android will beat iPhone

All Chinese game developers believe Apple will lose in China. When waiting in line to buy Apple products from many people, Google has basically been the case of China's restrictions, how could this happen?

The answer is the price. The rich can afford an iPhone or iPad, which they see as a symbol of social status. However, most Chinese users can not buy such products, so they turn to buy Android phones.

We can think of the phone as a car to think about it. I saw more new, high-end cars in Beijing than any other city I've been to. However, most Chinese people do not have a car; in general they will travel by subway, bus, motorbike, bicycle or on foot.

Apple users are like car owners, Android buyers are people who can not buy a car. In a country with a population of over 1 billion and millions of middle-class and wealthy people, Apple is able to make huge profits. However, most Chinese choose Android phones.

And the most astonishing aspect of Android and China is that while Google Play is banned in China, China still has more than 300 different Android markets. People buy HTC and Samsung phones, but the hottest Android phones are relatively inexpensive devices, as well as phones made by Vivo, Kobee, Konka and a large number of unknown companies.

CocoaChina hot as "fishing up to" data show that the game in China Android support rate leading iPhone. It has downloaded over 100 million downloads on all iOS and Android devices and over 50% of Chinese iOS and Android installations. It's popularity in China is far higher than the Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja.

Fishing people (from gamezebo)

"Fishing Daren" 30% of the installation from Android devices, Apple devices from the installation of only 17%. Cococa expects the game's Android platform revenue in China to outpace the iOS platform by 2013, although the iPhone 5 is already available.

All game developers that I have met in China complain one after another that Android applications (application approval process does not take 1 day), iOS application in China approval process (if it is lucky, it takes a few weeks) both slow and inefficient .

Based on the current situation, Apple in the Chinese market will not have much room for development.

However, Apple did not feel bad development prospects, but Google search engine has been hit by Baidu and other competitors, at present, a large number of emerging applications like Facebook has gathered millions of users, Facebook may be extended to Before the Chinese market will plunge and return. For western companies that want to dominate here, China is a hard-to-get-off bastion.

4. Chinese game companies intend to enter the United States market

All the Chinese game companies I visited said they hoped to introduce their games to the U.S. market. They believe it is easier to make a profit in the United States, as Chinese users there were more likely to pay for the game than their Chinese counterparts.

We find an interesting fact that most U.S. companies are moving in other directions trying to localize their games and bring them to the Chinese market because they believe the marketing cost of exposing their games to the App Store is too expensive , Will not generate more profit (except for some with millions of dollars, they still can afford CPI of $ 3 a month or more).

This phenomenon is like the two ships that pass by. The games companies in the United States and China go across the sea and into each other's territory, but only find out the reality of the market's challenging and profitability of each other.