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China is now the gamer capital of the world

Bloomberg Published on Thu, Jun 01, 2017 / 12:57 PM GMT+8

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LONDON (June 1): Revenue from computer games exceeded US$100 billion ($138 billion) globally in a single year for the first time, while China has overtaken the US as the "gamer capital of the world" in terms of market size, according to a report published by London-based venture capital firm Atomico.

The 600 million gamers in China generated US$24.6 billion of the industry's US$101.1 billion global market value over 2016, just ahead of the US’s US$24.1 billion. In 2015, the global games industry was worth US$91.8 billion according to data from research house Newzoo. A notable contributor to the growth has been Apple's mobile app store in China. In 2016, China accounted for 31% of the total US$18 billion generated by games on iOS, compared with just 3% of the US$2.4 billion total in 2012.

Tom Wehmeier, principal and head of research at Atomico and author of the report published Thursday, said a number of other major milestones were passed in 2016. “We've got to the point today where there are now more than two billion gamers globally, and mobile has really taken over to the extent that it's the largest segment overall,” said Wehmeier.