China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo. China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active ratio in 2015 according to TalkingData. Mobile chess games were popular among China mobile players in 2015.
Paid games rate of mobile role play games, action, and strategy games were higher than leisure games and card games in 2015. Mobile role play games, action, and strategy games have gradually captured more market in China.
China’s mobile RPG (role play game), FPS (first person shooting), MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena), SLG (simulation game), and card games which increased in a large amount in 2015 made the user retention rate increase and one-day user rate decline.
Some large companies such as Tencent began to develop the vertical market of mobile games in 2015. Although many players spent more time on some games, the overall usage seconds declined in 2015.
China’s overall mobile gaming market declined in active rate in 2015. Companies tended to transform to content-oriented APRU (average revenue per user) games.
Paid game ratio of role play games was the highest in December 2015. Pay game rate declined slightly overall while the rate of action games and role play games increased by about 4% in December 2015 compared to the previous month.
The weekly average active rate on the iOS operating system was higher than the Android and it increased by 39.5% compared to the previous month in December 2015. The weekly average active rate on Android system increased by 4.9% compared to the previous month.
The monthly active rate of puzzle games was the highest in Android smartphone players and monthly active rate of leisure games was the highest in iOS mobile players in December 2015. The monthly active rate increased by 9.4% month-on-month on iOS system and 0.3% month-on-month on Android system.
Mobile chess games had the lowest one-day player rate on average in December 2015. Chess games have traditionally been popular among users in different ages and careers. One-day play rate decreased slightly in December 2015.
Next-day retention rate rose by 11.8% month-on-month on Android system in last December. Mobile chess games had the highest next-day retention rate which might be influenced by the characteristics of chess games.
Seven-day retention rate increased 19.5% on iOS system in December 2015. Mobile chess games had the highest 7-day retention rate.
Mobile players on iOS system were more addicted to mobile games in December 2015. Many mobile games increased in usage seconds and usage times in December 2015, among which role play games, action games, and chess games maintained a large growth extent.
Mobile players in iOS system spent more time on games than Android players in December 2015. Mobile Android players spent an average of 598 seconds on role play games and iOS players spent an average of 1,080 seconds on strategy games in December 2015.
Global mobile gaming market reached more than US$30 billion in 2015 according to Newzoo, a Dutch research institute. China mobile gaming market rose to US$6.5 billion (equivalent to the entire North American market revenue) with an increase of to 46.5% YoY in 2015 being the world’s largest market. China online gaming market was expected to reach $22.2 billion in 2015 according to TalkingData.
Also read: China’s Mobile Internet Insights Q1-Q3 2015