Chinese Online Games Industry Has Doubled in Size Since 2008

Today, the Economist released a videographic that indicated the Chinese online game industry has doubled in size since 2008. In early January, the China Gaming Industry Report projected a continual year-on-year growth of 12.4%, so that the industry would be worth $21.7 billion by 2017.

The January report stated that the industry had reached a total estimated revenue of $9.7 billion (USD) in 2012, with online gaming account for about 94.5% ($9.1 billion). Mobile games accounted for 5.4%, and single-player games accounted for only .1%, according to the 2012 China Games Industry Report.

Of those online games, 54% were MMORPGs, 25% were casual online games, 14% were webpage games, and 7% were social games.

Other interesting information from the Economist videographic includes the fact that China now has as many people online as America and the European Union combined, despite the fact that less than 40% of their population is online. Additionally, Sina Weibo (the Chinese Twitter equivalent) has 500 million accounts, 50 million of which are considered daily active users. Twitter itself has 200 million monthly active users (there is no report for daily users) according to Twitter itself, and 500 million registered users as of 2012 according to analyst group Semiocast. However, only 140 million are in the United States. Since Weibo requires a Chinese citizen ID number to register, it’s no stretch to say that the vast majority of its 500 million accounts are domestic.