If you want an example of China’s rising consumer class, take a look at the burgeoning demand to play video games.
Sales will jump an average 7.4 percent a year from this year to 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) said.
That is higher than the 4.8 percent rate forecast for the industry worldwide, PwC said in its global entertainment and media outlook.
While in absolute terms, games contribute a tiny sliver of GDP, they are part of the bigger tectonic shift led by consumers, who are cushioning the drag from a factory slowdown. China’s gaming population was an estimated 534 million players last year — that is one out of every 14 people in the world.
Boosting the world’s third-largest video game market — after the US and Japan — are sales of streaming video games and e-sports competitions this year, PwC said.
In other words, gaming is increasingly social, not solo.
The rising popularity of competitions helps the appeal of both PC and mobile games in China, which boosts advertising revenue and will enlarge the “fan economy,” PwC analysts said in the report.
Games should get a lift from Chinese government policies that favor boosting innovation as well as generous spending for state-run firms to boost wireless network speeds, Wilson Chow (周偉然), the Shenzhen-based industry leader for tech, media and telecom in China and Hong Kong at PwC, said in an interview.
Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) will also speed up the development of the country’s game industry, he said.
China’s largest Internet company is leading an US$8.6 billion acquisition of Finnish gamemaker Supercell Oy.
By 2020, China’s gaming sales will climb from US$8.98 billion last year to US$12.85 billion, PwC estimates, outpacing an estimated global revenue increase from US$71.27 billion last year to US$90.07 billion in 2020.
Shanghai, Beijing and Guangdong are the main hubs of video game publication, PwC said.
While Pokemon Go has just landed in Hong Kong, the game is not available in the mainland, because it relies on Google Maps, which China’s Internet censors block.
So the gaming market will not get a lift from Pikachu chasers just yet.
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