Chinese gaming companies are speeding up their expansion into overseas markets, which have offered faster sales growth than the domestic market in recent months, data from a gaming industry report showed on Thursday.
China-developed video games made $5.57 billion in sales revenue from overseas markets in the first six months in 2019, up by 20.2 percent on a yearly basis and up from 16.1 percent growth in the first half of last year, according to statistics in the China Gaming Industry Report, which summarized China's gaming industry development in the first six months this year.
Gaming sales growth in overseas markets is faster compared with the sector's 15.4 percent sales growth in the domestic market in the first six months, the report figures showed.
Xiao Hong, CEO of Beijing-based gaming company Perfect World Co, said on Thursday that the company will continuously increase activity in overseas markets. This includes not only maintaining some of the firm's core business abroad but also exploring some relatively new segments like nurturing business in emerging markets.
Xiao told the Global Times that the company will continue to launch console games and PC games in mature markets like those in North America, which will be a focus of the company's overseas strategy.
Perfect World is also testing the waters in some emerging markets such as in India. "Those countries have large populations and rapid growth of 3G and 4G mobile phones. So although their people don't have as strong consumption power as those in developed countries, they present great potential for the gaming industry," Xiao said.
"We will not stop in our overseas business arrangement," he said. "Although we don't see explosive growth in overseas markets, the growth is generally stable," he said.
A report published by App Annie on China's games going abroad also noted that some domestic companies saw a massive jump in gaming revenues in overseas markets last year. For example, the overseas gaming revenues of Tencent and NetEase surged by more than 500 percent on a yearly basis in 2018, the report showed.
Global Times
