Chen Yan, chief executive officer of Snail Mobile. Photo: Courtesy of Snail Mobile

This year marks the 14th anniversary of the opening of the Snail Digital Technology Company. Since 2000, the company has developed more than 50 digital entertainment products, serving more than 100 million users across the globe. This April, Snail Digital Technology Company opened Snail Mobile, a branch company serving game players via mobile Internet services and devices.

Eight months after its establishment, Snail Mobile has already made several noteworthy steps on developing a virtual network operator in China's online gaming industry.

Determined to take the lead in the mobile Internet age in China, Snail Mobile is the first virtual network operator to develop services for online games. It has now expanded its business coverage by establishing an open mobile game platform called the Snail Store.

The Snail Store was established in March to download mobile games with no data cost for downloads. For example, subscribers of China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom can register and download the Snail Store application, and receive free data for all games downloaded through the store. Currently it has over 4,000 online games available, which include several self-developed games designed by Snail for personal computer, iOS and Android users.

Apart from the Snail Store platform, the company has also launched a SIM card promotion that offers different customized deals. One such SIM card called 999 allows users to make and receive free phone calls and receive 500 megabyte free Internet flow for the first six months with no extra service charges. Although users need to pay 699 yuan ($113) for the card, they do not have to worry about how much credit is still left in their card, which is a regular concern for those using 3G or 4G network to play online games.

According to Chen Yan, chief executive officer of Snail Mobile, all these customized products and services are upgrading the entertainment experiences for users' conveniences. The company also launched the Snail Gaming Mobile in June, a phone which is equipped with eight-core CPU, 2G RAM and 16G ROM that enables 3D online games to run smoothly.

Apart from the basic functions of an ordinary mobile, the Snail Gaming Mobile provides a great gaming experience. The phone's design is splendid, with gamepad-style buttons on either side of its 5-inch, 720P high resolution screen. The phone's buttons also have a double click speed six times faster than an ordinary mouse.

Despite all these advantages, Chen still sees Snail Mobile as a beginner and intends to further combine communication and online games in 2015. "In the age of mobile Internet, most companies cannot stay away from communication products. In the future, we will provide a series of value-added services and solutions for mobile game players," said Chen.