China gaming users continued to grow in 2017, increasing from 417 million to 422 million, but the proportion of internet users who were gamers fell slightly on the back of higher growth in internet penetration, to 56.1% (down 0.9 percentage points).

Mobile gaming gained ground, with the number of users increasing from 352 million to 385 million, and their portion of the total number of internet users rising from 50.6% to 53.3%.

Consumers of cultural products continued their gradual move online, with cultural websites and apps recording 352 million visitors in the first half of 2017, up from 333 million in 2016.

There were a total of 565 million users of video streaming websites in the first half of 2017, an increase of 20.26 million (3.7%) from 2016; 75.2% of internet users streamed video in the first half of 2017.

Chinese audience for online music streaming platforms was similar to that for video, albeit slightly smaller; from last year’s 503 million people, visitors to music streaming sites and apps increased by 21 million to 524 million (69.8% of internet users).

Ride-sharing and mobile taxi reservations saw dramatic growth in the first half of 2017, with user numbers increasing by 53.3 million to reach 278 million.

Download the details in the updated China Internet Insights report here.

Tencent is the number one public company ($10.2 bn) in the world by game revenues in 2016, followed by Sony ($7.88 bn) according to Newzoo. Another Chinese company Netease also made it to the top 10 ($4.2 bn) whose revenues grew by over 50%.

APAC territories will generate $46.6 billion in 2016, or 47% of total global game revenues according to Newzoo.

China alone accounts for half of APAC’s revenues, reaching $24.4 billion in 2016 to cement its place as the largest games market in the world, ahead of the US’s anticipated market size of $23.5 billion. China will remain the largest games market for the foreseeable future, growing to $28.9 billion by 2019.

Top 10 Public Companies by game Revenues

Consolidation of the Top 10

The current top 10 public companies by game revenues accounted for 54% of the global games market in 2016, up from 43% in 2015.

Related: China online gaming market overview 2011-2019

China online gaming market reached 177 billion yuan (US$25.7 bn) in 2016 and is estimated to grow to exceed 232 billion yuan (US$33.69 bn) in 2019 according to data from iResearch.

The proportion of mobile games grow to over 56% in 2016 and will exceed 66% in 2019. The total number of mobile gaming users is 521 million and the PC end has 484 million users in 2016.

Tencent is the top online gaming company by revenues with 325.2 billion yuan (US$47.23 bn) revenues from PC and 383.4 bn yuan (US$55.68 bn) from mobile, followed by Netease (PC: 108.3 bn yuan/US$15.73 bn; mobile: 165.1 bn yuan/US$23.98 bn).

This article is an excerpt from EBook – China Internet Insights 2017

China’s mobile internet market reached RMB 197.22 billion (USD 29 billion) in Q2 2016, an increase of 113% YoY or 22.7% QoQ according to iResearch.

Mobile shopping accounted for 62.9% of China’s mobile internet market, followed by mobile advertising (20.1%) and mobile gaming (12.4%).

China’s mobile shopping market reached RMB 783.44 billion (USD 115.65 billion) in Q2 2016 with a growth rate of 75.9% YoY.

China online gaming market reached RMB 41.6 billion (US$6.24 billion) in Q2 2016, an increase of 24.2% YoY or 0.9% QoQ.

China mobile gaming market reached RMB 24.4 billion (US$3.66 bn) in Q2 2016, an increase of 120.3% YoY or 15.5% QoQ. Mobile accounted for 58.7% of China’s total online gaming market in Q2 2016.

China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo. China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active ratio in 2015 according to TalkingData. Mobile chess games were popular among China mobile players in 2015.

Paid games rate of mobile role play games, action, and strategy games were higher than leisure games and card games in 2015. Mobile role play games, action, and strategy games have gradually captured more market in China.

China’s mobile RPG (role play game), FPS (first person shooting), MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), SLG (simulation game), and card games which increased in a large amount in 2015 made the user retention rate increase and one-day user rate decline.

Some large companies such as Tencent began to develop the vertical market of mobile games in 2015. Although many players spent more time on some games, the overall usage seconds declined in 2015.

China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active rate in 2015. Companies tended to transform to content-oriented APRU (average revenue per user) games.

Paid game ratio of role play games was the highest in December 2015. Pay game rate declined slightly overall while the rate of action games and role play games increased by about 4% in December 2015 compared to the previous month.

The weekly average active rate on the iOS operating system was higher than the Android and it increased by 39.5% compared to the previous month in December 2015. The weekly average active rate on Android system increased by 4.9% compared to the previous month.

The monthly active rate of puzzle games was the highest in Android smartphone players and monthly active rate of leisure games was the highest in iOS mobile players in December 2015. The monthly active rate increased by 9.4% month-on-month on iOS system and 0.3% month-on-month on Android system.

Mobile chess games had the lowest one-day player rate on average in December 2015. Chess games have traditionally been popular among users in different ages and careers. One-day play rate decreased slightly in December 2015.

Next-day retention rate rose by 11.8% month-on-month on Android system in last December. Mobile chess games had the highest next-day retention rate which might be influenced by the characteristics of chess games.

Seven-day retention rate increased 19.5% on iOS system in December 2015. Mobile chess games had the highest 7-day retention rate.

Mobile players on iOS system were more addicted to mobile games in December 2015. Many mobile games increased in usage seconds and usage times in December 2015, among which role play games, action games, and chess games maintained a large growth extent.

Mobile players in iOS system spent more time on games than Android players in December 2015. Mobile Android players spent an average of 598 seconds on role play games and iOS players spent an average of 1,080 seconds on strategy games in December 2015.

Global mobile gaming market reached more than US$30 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo, a Dutch research institute. China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion (equivalent to the entire North American market revenue) with an increase of to 46.5% YoY in 2015 being the world’s largest market. China online gaming market was expected to reach $22.2 billion in 2015 according to TalkingData.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

The number of China’s gaming players is to reach 534 million with an increase of 3.3% YoY in 2015. The overall gaming market in China totals 140.70 billion yuan (US$21.71 billion) with an increase of 22.9% YoY this year according to China Gaming Industry Annual Conference, including client-based games, web page games, social games, mobile games, single-player games, and TV games.

Online gaming market developed independently in China reached 98.67 billion yuan (US$15.22 billion) in revenues with an increase of 35.8% YoY. Actual export sales of self-developed online games in China reached US$5.31 billion with an increase of 72.4% compared to the previous year.

Actual sales of China’s client-side gaming market reached 61.16 billion yuan (US$9.44 billion) with an increase of 0.4% YoY. Web gaming market reaches 21.96 billion yuan (US$3.39 billion) in revenues with an increase of 8.3% YoY; mobile gaming market reached 51.46 billion yuan (US$7.94 billion) with an increase of 87.2% YoY. And, console gaming market reached 140 million yuan (US$21.60 million) with an increase of 180% YoY. TV gaming market reached 220 million yuan (US$33.94 million).

About 750 games have been approved in 2015 to publish by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China, among which client games accounted for 11.2%, web games 32.8%, mobile games 49.7%, and TV games 6.3%. The top three regions of most published games are Shanghai (51.2%), Beijing (16.2%), and Guangdong (9.0%).

The number of China’s public listed gaming companies reached 171 with a total market value of 4,761 billion yuan, 79.6% of which are listed on A-share stock exchanges accounting for 65.2% of total market value. 9.9% are listed in Hong Kong accounting for 32.3% total market value; 10.5% in the U.S accounting for 2.5% of total public listed gaming companies’ market value.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

China’s online gaming market reached 35.39 billion (US$5.51 billion) in the third quarter of 2015 with an increase of 5.5% QoQ and 24.5% YoY according to iResearch.

Mobile gaming accounted for 35.1% China online gaming market while online gaming declined in terms of transactions.

Mobile gaming has become the driving force of China online gaming market. As users spent more and more time on smartphones and mobile games, the mobile gaming market was expected to exceed PC client online gaming.

The mobile gaming market in Q3 2015 was predicted to reach 12.41 billion (US$1.89 billion) with an increase of 11.9% QoQ and 72.0% YoY although Analysys, another Chinese research company, predicted it would reach 14.66 billion yuan (US$2.28 billion) in Q3 2015.

The increase was mainly due to more severe competitive game categories as FPS and MOBA and increasing IP games which have brought more traffic and fans. What’s more, a large number of students are obsessed with mobile gaming during summer holidays in August and September.

The most popular mobile games were role play games, cards games and chess games in the third quarter of 2015. China’s mobile gaming players are expected to reach 360 million generating transactions of US$50.1 billion according to RecordJapan, and the average weekly usage will be as long as 4.3 hours in 2015.

The overall online gaming market in China this year is expected to reach $22.2 billion (about 142 billion yuan), and officially surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest online gaming market according to data of TalkingData and Newzoo.

Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015

China mobile gaming market reached 14.663 billion yuan (US$2.29 billion), an increase of 13.7% QoQ and 101.8% YoY.

China’s mobile gaming market began a rapid growth in 2012, which has attracted a large number of entrepreneurs and investors. However, China’s large mobile gaming companies had a tendency to join forces together which led to great pressure to small and medium sized developers that Matthew Effect was clearly heightened.

Tencent, Netease, and OurPalm controlled China’s mobile gaming market with a combined market share of 52% (Tencent 27.3%, Netease 18.1%, and Ourpalm 6.6%). New games flooded the market at an amazing speed. For example, a total number of 1,301 new games entered the market in October 2015. Role play games and card games were most popular.

China’s mobile gaming market is expected to reach US$50.1 billion in 2015 with about 360 million users and weekly average usage of 4.3 hours according to RecordJapan. The global mobile gaming market is predicted to reach US$250 billion with 1,500 million new users in 2015.

Also read: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights in Q3 2015

China’s mobile internet users reached 657 million and smartphone users 601 million in Q2 2015 according to iiMedia. Smartphone penetration in China is expected to reach 38.6% by the end of 2015 and mobile apps is becoming an important part of Chinese life.

Nearly 58.7% of the Chinese Android smartphone users downloaded apps from third-party app stores. Other important download channels are app stores of smartphone vendors, app stores of system operating vendors and app stores of operating vendors. Only a small amount of users will download apps from websites. Users of iOS usually download from App Stores.

Active users of third-party mobile app stores in Q2 2015 increased to 428 million, with growth of 1.9% compared with the previous quarter. Users of third-party app stores kept a steady growth momentum although the growth rate slows down.

360 Mobile Guard ranks first in terms of total number of active users, followed by Myapp and Baidu Mobile Assistant. Xiaomi app store is also popular, especially among MIUI and Xiaomi users. Stores with high profile, variety of apps and security insurance are key factors to attract more users.

In terms of popularity of various types of mobile apps in China, the Chinese smartphone users prefer instant messaging and social communication apps, followed by news apps and music apps.

App update frequency by developers could reflect the number of active users and the competitiveness. About 14.3% apps are updated once longer than six months which means users aren’t a lot and may not be further maintained.

Tencent News, TouTiao, Netease News and Sohu News are major channels for Chinese to get news information. The post-90s, post-80s and post-70s are the majority of mobile app readers.

By Q2 2015, China’s music apps users reached 423 million with a growth rate of 2.7%. Kugou Music and QQ music win in music apps market with their high publicity and large song lists. Music apps are not used as frequently as news apps.

Taxi-calling apps are the most frequently used amongall car-calling apps for the lower cost. Users who prefer to get a better experience are more likely to use carpooling apps. The average fare of 78.2% taxi trips is less than 50 yuan (US$7.85) while only 24.9% of carpooling is less than 50 yuan. About 36.8% of carpooling costs is between 50 yuan to 100 yuan (US$15.70).

China mobile video app market is basically the same with the online market. Active users of music apps reachED 368 million with a growth rate of 3.1%. A matured online video market of Youku, iQIYI, Tencent Video, PPTV and Sohu Video has been established. Other apps in total accounted for only 18.1% of market share.

China’s mobile gaming users reached 10.85 billion yuan in Q2 2015, with 491 million users. Mobile apps couldn’t process too much storage and a majority of existing apps are puzzle games.

China’s app market still has a large room for development. At present, advertising and value-added services are the two most important profit channels for developers. However, the average usage period of apps is only ten months and about 85% apps are uninstalled within a month, especially social communication apps, which makes it hard for developers to gain profits. Developers should avoid invasion of users’ privacy and improve performance to attract more users.

Also read: China’s Mobile Search Market Insights in Q3 2015

By the first half of 2015, the number of China’s mobile gaming users totaled 365.5 million, which achieved a growth rate of 12.5% compared with the same period last year.

China’s mobile gaming market began a rapid growth in 2012, which attracted a large number of entrepreneurs and investors owing. According to some experts, a successful mobile game costs 3 million yuan in research and development while gained 10 times profit for several months.

However, China’s large mobile gaming companies had a tendency to join forces together and caused greater pressure to small and medium sized developers. H1 2015 reached 20.93 billion yuan in the mobile gaming market with YoY growth of 67.2% and QoQ of 21.9%, and it is expected to generate more than 40 billion yuan.

Many considerable problems existed in China mobile gaming market, both home and domestic. For example, in China about 66% users would lose interests within only 24 hours after first access, and only 1% to 3% were willing to experience more with in-app payment; about 75% mobile gaming apps require promotion, adding more costs to companies; the traditional online gaming market could support an instant communication platform for users while mobile-end could not.

Mobile gaming expanded markets with an unbelievable growth rate. With the integration of resources as well as the improvement of hardware performance, the future of mobile gaming will face greater development potential. Tmall made an excellent demonstration for us: cooperating with some mobile gaming company, Tmall support one-click purchase when users had favorable clothes of gaming models. In the future, more mobile gaming companies would cooperate with e-business companies.

Also read: Moda, Tmall Virtual Dressing Room Debuted

The penetration ratio of iOS8 reached 76% in China in Q2 2015; and as of August 2015, only 19.4% subscribers still used the iOS7 system. The popularization of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus promoted the adoption of iOS8, and the free system upgrade feature improved iPhone user base in China. When issued in September 2015, iOS9 might replace iOS8 and gain more market share.

Smartphones with large screens were most welcomed in China. Screens with 1280*920 were best-sellers in the market, as Xiaomi Note, Huawei Glory, iPhone 6Plus.

Smartphones market in China faced a fierce competition in the past several months. Xiaomi and Huawei chased iPhone out of the largest smartphone vendor in China by shipments in Q2 2015, and China’s 360 and Letv released smart handsets, driven by the success of some domestic brands. Samsung, the Korea-based brand, was gradually losing its market share in China.

In Q2 2015, the penetration rate of 4G networks reached 20.1% up of over 200 million, 14.8 percentage points higher compared with Q1 2015.

China Mobile composed of 53.4% of China’s mobile network market share, followed by China Unicom (25.27%) and China Telecom (21.3%). 86.6% of 4G network users accessed to the internet through China Mobile, which maintained prominence and expertise compared with China Telecom and China Unicom (11.31% in total).

Compared with Q2 2014, life service, shopping and health apps increased in a large amount. Took mobile shopping apps as example, overseas shopping, mother care, group buying and etc. apps increased obviously.

Mobile gaming apps also increased in a large amount compared with the same period last year. Leisure and mind gaming apps maintained a growth trend of over 40%, followed by network gaming apps and role play apps.

Guangdong province had 12.75% of mobile gaming users in China, followed by Jiangsu province (6.58%) and Henan province (6.26%). Regions in eastern of southern part of China had more mobile gaming users.

More entrepreneurs devoted themselves to the exploration of mobile internet. Beijing, the capital city of China, had a unique advantage and attracted entrepreneurs with its robust internet atmosphere. Other regions, for example, the Yangtze River Delta, also attracted many internet entrepreneurs.

Men and women had nearly total different preference towards mobile apps. Men preferred apps for entertainment, navigation, social communication, reading and etc. while women preferred shopping, healthy, photography, education apps and etc.

Users above 20 years old preferred to play chess and card games, and 5 to 12 years old were the most likely to play sport and adventure games. Users of 13 to 18 years old comprised of the majority of mobile gaming apps users in each kind of mobile apps.

61% mobile apps were downloaded in leisure time, and 44% of which were mobile gaming apps. In non-leisure time, 39% were downloaded, and 63% of those were non gaming apps.

Also read: China Top 100 Mobile Apps in July 2015

In 2015, Chinese online gaming market is expected to reach $22.2 billion (about 142 billion yuan), and officially surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest online gaming market according to data of TalkingData and Newzoo. Mobile gaming revenue of China in 2015 is estimated to reach $6.5 billion (about 41.6 billion yuan), surpassing Japan and the United States to become the world’s largest mobile gaming market.

In 2014, the world’s top ten online gaming countries and regions by revenues are the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Britain France, Canada, Spain and Italy; and by 2018, China will reach the top; Brazil and Mexico will become the seventh and tenth respectively.

In 2013, China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest online gaming market, following the United States. However, in only wo years, China will take the top spot and reach nearly 2 times that of Japanese online gaming market revenues. By 2016, the Chinese gaming market will increase to $26.2 billion (about 167.7 billion yuan) ahead of the U.S. $22.6 billion (144.6 billion yuan), and expected to reach $30 billion (about 192 billion yuan) in 2018.

Although the Chinese online gaming market represents a very big opportunity, the main revenue of current Chinese game industry still comes from local developers and local games. European and American developers may enter China indirectly during the process. For example, Tencent has been seeking for more developers from Europe and American.

About 4.8% of American mobile gaming players would spend a lot on gaming, compared to 2.6% in China. In terms of demographics, the amounts of highest consumption players between the two countries are similar, but the ratio of women is slightly higher in China. In the U.S., the largest age level of high-spend users (48%) is male between 21 to 35 year-old; in China the largest age level of high-spend users (43%) is also between 21 to 35 years old.

In 2015, top 10 western publishers by Android revenues in China are Supercell, Mojang, Raleigh, PopCap and Gameloft. Top 10 Chinese publishers by Android revenues in China are Tencent, NetEase, Yingan Games, Happy Elements and iDreamsky.

In the Chinese online gaming market, the top 20 games revenues accounts for 74.2% of top 100 total revenues, compared to 61.3% in the U.S.. In 2015, the U.S. market is expected to reach 3.5% increase up to $22 billion in revenue. Despite the common misconception that the U.S. mobile gaming market has reached a saturation stage, the smartphones and tablet games will still maintain a 13.4% and 17.8% annual growth rates respectively and reach $6 billion in revenue (27% of total).

Also read: China Mobile Gaming Market in H1 2015

In H1 2015, the total transaction revenue of China’s gaming market reached 60.51 billion yuan (US$9.73 billion), an increase of 21.9% compared with the same period of last year. The transaction revenue of self-developed online gaming market reached 45.83 billion yuan (US$ 7.37 billion), accounting for 75.7%; and the overseas market revenue was US$1.76 billion, according to GPC, IDC and CNG.

Client-end gaming users reached 134 million in China. And, the actual transaction revenue reached 26.71 billion yuan (US$ 4.29 billion), with an increase of 4.5% compared with the same period in 2014. The number of webpage gaming users in China reached 305 million; the transaction revenue reached 10.28 billion yuan, with an increase of 12.0% YoY. China mobile gaming users reached 366 million; the transaction revenue reached 20.93 billion yuan, with an increase of 67.2%. See more about China’s online gaming market here.

China’s mobile gaming is becoming an essential part in China mobile users’ daily life. Users tdend to favor games on mobile devices rather than on computers. In recent years, China’s gaming industry has been developing reasonably, while the penetration of mobile devices, improvement of 3G/4G network and popularity of social platform lead to the rapid growth of mobile online gaming market in China.

And various categories of mobile games, such as card games, mild games, role play games, music games action games and so on together with many newly-launched games attracted the interests of more and more mobile users, especially female users who didn’t play online games at all. In the second half of 2015, China’s mobile gaming market is expected to attract more users.

Also read: Baidu Revenues Reached US$2.67B in Q2 2015

In Q1 2015, China mobile internet users reached 740 million with increase of 1.6% QoQ and 10.27% YoY, which showed stable growth in the mobile internet market according to data from EnfoDesk.

Also read: 24% of Top Global Mobile Internet Unicorns from China

China online gaming market exceeded 30 billion yuan for the first time and reached 32.08 billion yuan (US$ ) in Q1 2015, an increase of 8% QoQ with 24.7% growth YoY according to iResearch.

2015 will be a year full of opportunities and challenges for China mobile gaming market. China female mobile gaming users still have much potential and their habit of paying for games is expected to develop.

Mobile has increasingly become an important platform for China online gaming market with 31% market share.

Also read: RPG & Card Games Most Popular in China Online Gaming Market in 2014

2015 will be a year full of opportunities and challenges for China mobile gaming market. China female mobile gaming users still have much potential and their habit of paying for games is expected to develop according to DataEye. Various gaming companies are sparing no efforts to attract gaming users.

Card games, as well as mind games, are popular among China mobile gaming users in 2015.

In 2014, heavy games were increasing from 42.11% to 56.85%. Compared to mild games, heavy games are more interesting. Besides, heavy game users are more willing to pay for games which indicates that in 15 years, heavy game’s market share will be bigger. See more about China mobile gaming market in 2014 here.

Also read: Chinese Female Internet Users Insight

Among the list of China top 100 online games by downloads in 2014, role play games and card & chess games were favored by online gaming users in China. RPG games accounted for 43% while card and chess game accounted for 34% in 2014 by total number of downloads.

In 2014, top types of China online games by revenue were card and role play games, which accord with top types of games by downloads in China.

Also read: Mobile Almost A Quarter of China Online Gaming Market in 2014

Recently, the Top 52 app publishers (by revenue) list in 2014 was released by App Annie (a company which do research on mobile app market).On the list, there are 7 China app companies. Tencent ranked the fifth, which is also the top company by revenue in China in 2014. Besides, the other six are IGC China, Kunlun, Longtu Game, Happyelements, Tap4Fun and Perfectworld, which ranked 29, 36, 39, 44, 45, 52 on the list respectively.

See the top 52 list below:

Also read: BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Chinese Brands 2015: 3 of Top 5 are Internet companies