The strong health of the China Games Industry was confirmed at its 2006 Annual Meeting

on January 11 in Xiamen. It was announced that the market size was $470 million USD in

2005, a 30 percent increase over 2004′s subscribers and a 52.6 percent increase over 2004

income. Online games also provided a boost of 17.3 billion yuan ($2.14 billion USD) to

telecommunications, 7.1 billion yuan ($887.5 million USD) to the IT industry, and 30

million yuan ($3.7 million USD) to the publishing industry.

 

Kou Xiaowei, Deputy Director of the General Administration of Press and Publication

(GAPP), announced that domestically-created computer games accounted for more than

60% of the market in 2005. He added that the number of game development companies

in China had increased from 73 in 2004 to over 120. Player statistics are also very strong,

with China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) estimating that half of the 53

million broadband users in China are game players.

 

GAPP is looking forward to growth in online casual games (30% of online game market

in 2005) and mobile games and expects the whole market to reach 17.2 billion yuan

($2.1 billion USD) by 2010.

 

This reality is behind the nationwide push to train tens of thousands of game professionals

which is taking place in all major Universities. We can expect the number of Chinese game

developers to surge in the next 3 years and their impact on the international market to follow

quickly.