Chinese games market expected to surpass $760 million in 2006

April 3rd, 2006, 21:22 Posted By: wraggster

The games market in China is expected to surpass $760 million in 2006 with 95% of revenues derived from the booming online games segment. These findings are contained in a report released by San Francisco-based Pearl Research, a leading business intelligence and consulting firm that specializes in the interactive entertainment and games market.

Allison Luong, Managing Director of Pearl Research, commented, "The Chinese online games market is expected to cross the $1 billion mark by 2009, driven by the launch of innovative and compelling content, the addition of new Internet users and a growing casual games market."

Other key findings include:

– China has a large untapped games market with less than 3% of the population (25 million) playing games and 9% (111 million) using the Internet. Growing affluence tied to China's booming economy has resulted in an expanding middle-class with discretionary income to spend on entertainment and online services. By 2010, Pearl Research expects China to be a top-ten worldwide games market.

– The rapid adoption of the Internet is helping to fuel the growth of the online games market in China, with 111 million Internet users in 2005, up from 52 million in 2002. Nearly 56% of Internet access is via broadband.

I know that Nintendo releases products under the name iQue in China but I’m not sure if they have much to do with the growing online business. Surely, speeding up their online plans had something to do with this. With a huge collection of downloadable games and a very low price point, I can’t help but think the Revolution was, in part, designed for the 2 or so billion people over there in China.

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