By 2018, there will be 770 million mobile players in
China. By the end of 2015, China will have caught up and possibly surpassed the
United States and Japan in terms of mobile game market volume. RPG accounts for
⅕ of all Chinese
Top-Grossing.
In Japan, so many people play mobile games “on the
go” that the administration of East Japan Railway Company even had to place
notes in public locations that forbid using mobile devices while moving. In
2016, F2P games are expected to generate the revenue of over $100 billion.
The smartphone “penetration” level is 73%, which is
16.6% more than in the USA. Yearly mobile game revenue growth in South Korea
equals to 33%.
China, Japan and South Korea are the key regions for
entering the Asian market, but they are not the only ones. Here is a tidbit of
information on Taiwan for you to think about.
The mobile game industry in Taiwan is growing at an
average rate of 70% per year, breaking all possible records of profitability.
There is a good reason why Wu Wen-Jung from Taipei Computer Association prefers
to call it a “snowball effect”. By the end of 2015, the industry is forecasted
to have earned more than $474M.
So, what do you need to know about entering Asian
markets? We could write about the specific nature of their players, their
preferences in graphics, gameplay, local stores and payment services. So much
has been told and written on this topic that we see no good in bringing up this
subject again, instead we'll talk about the more pressing problem of KPIs that
one should rely on when carrying out a soft-launch in Asia.
Let us take a closer look at China as it is the
largest country in the Asian region
The Chinese Internet population amounts to
668,110,314 people, which is the largest population worldwide. This is one
tasty morsel for developers and marketing specialists; however it is reliably
protected by the famous Chinese wall. The Chinese market is as closed as it is
possible to be; and the Android market is fully fragmented. Billings and piracy
thrive on the fertile ground of the Chinese user market. It is almost
impossible to find any transparent sources of traffic there. Besides, in order
to launch a successful online campaign you need to have offline support.
For a successful release in China, you should use
App Store and, at least, TOP-20 local Android-stores:
360 Mobile Assistant – over 400 million users — its
market share is 27%.
Myapp — over 64 million installs per day — its
market share is 26%.
Baidu Mobile Assistant — the store of the main
search system in China — its market share is 18%.
MIUI app store — over 30 million users — its market
share is 14%.
HiMarket — a unique mix of a platform for developers
and an app store — its market share is 9%.
SnapPea — over 300 million users — its market share
is 8%.
91 mobile assistant — over 10 million users — its
market share is 6%.
Anzhi Market — over 1,5К new apps every day — its
market share is 6%.
and so on.
The mobile game preferences of the Chinese players
differ from the preferences of their Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
TOP-5 most popular mobile game genres in China:
Races (according to the data provided by AppLift).
Strategies.
RPG.
Card games.
Brain Training.
Facebook and Twitter are blocked by a firewall;
WeChat and Weibo are the two most popular social networks among the Chinese
users as well as other Asian users.
The average ARPPU is very high and amounts to about
$23,5/month! Given that the English language penetration rate is very low among
the Chinese population, it is imperative that your game should be localized
into Simplified Сhinese. The time it takes the product to fully enter the
Chinese market is not less than 8 months. We strongly recommend searching for a
partner or a publisher in this region.
The following table provides some key indicators for
a launch in China.
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