We knew that the Chinese game market was already showing some potential growth, especially with the involvement of such power players as Tencent. However, we didn’t realize just how explosive that growth would be – until now.

A report from VentureBeat states that the Chinese mobile gaming market will show some incredible growth through the remainder of the year, as it’s expected to rise an estimated 93 percent to $2.9 billion. That expansion should continue onward as well, with a compound annual growth rate of 37.6 percent over the next five years.

Niko Partners, an independent market researcher, also indicates that 38 percent of Chinese mobile gamers will spend money throughout this gaming year.

“Mobile games were already popular in 2013, but they’ve become even bigger this year,” said Xiaofeng Zeng, senior analyst at Niko, about the numbers. “Before, Chinese gamers played shorter time sessions. But now, they pay for longer period. And traditional online game companies like Tencent are now spending a lot more money developing mobile games.”

Zeng believes that the market will hit an approximate $7.7 billion in revenue by 2018, nearly triple of what games will make this year. That’s quite a chunk of change, despite the fact that the PC gaming market in China will continue to dominate, with $14 billion expected this year alone.

“With roughly 4,000 mobile games published in China annually, a company needs to understand the true demand and behavior of Chinese gamers in order to ascend to the top of the rankings and generate significant revenue,” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner and founder of Niko Partners. “However, with 288 million Chinese mobile gamers in 2014 forecast by Niko to rise to 770 million by 2018, a savvy mobile-game developer can be profitable with even a small amount of spending on its game if it gets into the hands of enough smartphone owners.”

It’ll be interesting to see where the market goes from here…and most certainly fun for a lot of gamers.

Source: VentureBeat