Ever wonder just how widespread mobile gaming is in China? A new “China Video Game Industry Report” has the answer: it’s massive. According to the report, China had 366 million mobile gamers during the first half of 2015. That’s enough to replace the entire population of the USA and Canada, and still have a few million mobile gamers left over.
The report also counted 305 million browser gamers (enough to replace the entire population of Indonesia and Singapore with plenty left over), and 134 million PC gamers (enough to replace the entire population of Japan).
But although China’s mobile gamers are numerous, they’re not quite as willing to fork out cash as their PC gaming brethren. China’s mobile gaming industry generated RMB 20 billion (US$3.2 billion) in revenue in 1H2015, but that wasn’t enough to equal up to PC gaming revenues, which topped the heap at RMB 26.7 billion (US$4.3 billion). Browser games generated just RMB 10.3 billion (US$1.6 billion) in revenue.
Those revenue numbers don’t tell the whole story, though. Mobile game revenues are growing at a much faster year-on-year rate (67 percent) than either PC games (4.5 percent) or browser games (12) percent. It’s likely that soon, possibly even in the second half of 2015, mobile gaming revenues in China will eclipse PC gaming revenues for the first time.
Given that there are already three times as many mobile gamers as PC gamers, though, China’s PC gaming industry is likely to offer the higher ARPU for the foreseeable future. The fact that PC gaming leads both mobile and browser gaming in revenues despite having substantially fewer users is a testament to the strength of China’s longstanding PC gaming community.
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