Huge Mobile Phone Users

China has experienced rapid growth in the number of mobile cellular subscribers in recent years. The quantity of cell phone users in China has exceeded 530 million up to Oct 2007, according to the Oct 2007 statistics of Ministry of Information Industry; and accounting for around 18% of the 3 billion mobile cellular subscribers worldwide as suggested by International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

User Behavior: Web Surfing on Mobile Phone

The use of 2.5G cellular wireless technology and the installation of WAP2.0 micro-browser in new cell phones models has facilitated the Chinese cellular users to access higher quality graphics, richer content and improved interactivity, making the population size of mobile phone Internet-surfer to reach 44.3 million as of June 2007, increased by 240% year over year, quoted from the 20th Survey of China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

The Mobile Phone Game Industry

Mobile network games are among the most popular Web content mostly consumed by the Chinese mobile cellular subscribers. According to a recent report by ChinaVenture (www.chinaventure.com.cn), the revenue of mobile phone game service providers in China amounted to RMB 32 million (or USD 4 million) in 2006, increased by 160% year over year. It is anticipated that the revenue of mobile phone game service providers will be further increased to RMB 110 million (or USD 13.8 million) by the end of 2007.

Mobile phone game development has been regarded as the trend and future of Chinese game industry. With a view that mobile phone game market size will grow to a comparable size of PC online game market, iResearch Consulting Group (www.iresearchgroup.com.cn) even described 2007 as the “Year One” of Chinese mobile network game industry.

Segmentation

With the rapid growth of cell phone users and mobile communication industry, the mobile game type has evolved from simple pre-installed games, downloadable games to the color-screen Java games, large scale network games and multi-players network games.

In terms of technical platform that mobile phone games rely on, the market size of WAP games and JAVA/BREW games are much larger than that of SMS games. But in terms of market growth potential, most of the game developers tend to focus on WAP and/or JAVA/BREW games; as they are in a relative advantage position.