Last year, we learned that social networking site Renren (NYSE:RENN) was planning to diversify its offerings and move into, among other things, games to increase revenue. And at the company’s 2012 earnings call, executives doubled down on the gaming emphasis and laid out a plan to move more aggressively into Android gaming.
The company did have some success in mobile gaming in 2012, but its users came primarily via the iOS platform, and since China has way more Android users than iOS users, a harder push into the Android gaming market could yield bigger rewards, although it is also a more crowded and disjointed market. Renren CEO Chen Yizhou said that Renren will be pushing to create a “powerful product line” in Android games.
The move comes at a time when Renren is finding its web-based social network increasingly edged out of users’ online habits by newer and more mobile social products like Sina Weibo and Tencent’s WeChat. The company’s stock has not performed particularly well, and there were even rumors of layoffs at the company late last year. But the company reportedly still has around 700 people in its games department spread out through several offices around the globe, so it should be in a good position to produce and distribute Android games.
Whether or not users will flock to those games is another question entirely, though. China’s Android market is fragmented across dozens of app stores, and competition for users and revenue in the gaming sector is fierce. Plus, as we saw yesterday, China’s young gamers aren’t quite as into mobile gaming as some might expect.
(via Sina Tech)
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