China's Game Market to Keep Recovering in Second Half, Official Says(Yicai Global) July 27 -- The Chinese gaming market picked up in the first half and is expected to further rebound in the second half, according to the game industry regulator.
From January to June, sales of games totaled CNY144.3 billion (USD20.2 billion), up 22 percent from the second half of 2022 but down 2 percent from a year ago, according to a report released today by Zhang Yijun, chairman of the Game Publishing Committee of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association.
Consumers' willingness and ability to spend money on entertainment did not yet recover in the first four months of this year and that is the main reason for the year-over-year decline, Zhang said. Still, the market is expected to rebound in the second half, he added.
In the first half, sales of Chinese games abroad dropped by almost 9 percent to USD8.2 billion from a year ago. The economic downturn has affected overseas users' willingness to pay while fluctuations in exchange rates and intense competition with rivals have triggered a rise in overseas marketing costs, the report added.
The largest overseas market for Chinese game publishers was the United States, making up almost 32 percent of the total. The second-largest one was Japan with a nearly 20 percent share, followed by South Korea. Moreover, emerging markets, including the Middle East, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, maintained an upward momentum.
China had a record high of 668 million players in the first half, up 0.4 percent YoY, reversing a downturn. Last year, fewer people played games for the first time in almost a decade as there were not many hit releases amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The country is preparing to kick off the most influential digital entertainment exhibition of this year tomorrow as the 20th China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference, also known as ChinaJoy, will start. The four-day event is expected to attract nearly 500 exhibitors and even more visitors than before the pandemic, according to official data.
Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine
