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ChinaJoy 2012: Online, mobile games attract carriers

Chinese telecom carriers make prominent appearance at Asia's biggest game industry exhibition, as online and mobile game markets boom.
Written by Liu Jiayi, Contributor

 

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(Screenshot by Liu Jiayi)

A record number of 160,000 visitors clamored to the Shanghai New International Expo Centre from Jul. 26 to 29 to attend the 10th ChinaJoy 2012 exhibition. Among the 300 exhibitors, China's "big three" carriers--China MobileChina Telecom and China Unicom--focused on the online and mobile game markets, which had been expanding at a very high speed.

According to a half-year industry report released in July, the country's online gamer population reached 205 million, a 28 percent increase year-on-year, and 78 million people chose China Mobile as their mobile game provider. Online and mobile games generated a combined revenue of over 5 billion RMB (US$780 million) during the first six months of 2012.

As for another giant, China Telecom, its games platform "egame" provided 70 million subscribers with 3,000 kinds of games.

Mu Zhenguo, an analyst at the company's operation center, said Chinese carriers recognize the potential of the online and mobile game markets. "We carriers have the advantages in terms of network, channel, customer resources, and charging methods," said Mu in a talk with a local newspaper. 

According to Mu, the egame platform invited participation from game operators and developers and sought cooperation with foreign game companies, while enhancing access to its 2G and 3G mobile phone users and platform subscribers. 

During the event, China Unicom also launched its own games platform, "Wo Store Game Center", which had already attracted 2,000 developers and a projected subscriber population of 30 million by year-end, said Wei Xin, general director of the company's apps store operation center.

 

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