According to Pearl Research, China’s online game market grew 25 percent in 2010 to $5 billion and could reach $8 billion in 2014. Tencent led in revenue with $1.4 billion for its QQ service social games, Netease.com was second with $749 million in revenue, followed by Shanda Games with $680 million, Perfect World with $374 million, and Changyou with $327 million.
Pearl expects there to be several mergers and acquisitions in 2011, both between Chinese companies and with international ones. They estimate that there are more than 450 million broadband connections in China and there are at least 138,000 internet cafes in the country.
