Entering into a sector that accounts for 13.5 per cent of Chinese video gaming market.
China is a big fan of mobile gaming – a market that was predicted to be worth around $2.5 billion this year.
E-commerce company, Alibaba has clocked onto this fact and has announced that it will be introducing its very own mobile gaming platform in the country.
Liu Chunning, head of digital entertainment business at Alibaba, came from its tech rival Tencent Holdings who currently dominate the rapidly expanding market – so with his potential knowledge, this could be a game changing move for the company.
Tencent also owns social messaging app, WeChat which proved to be one of the most popular IM platforms, ahead of Twitter, BBM and Skype.
Florence Shih, a spokeswoman from Alibaba, announced that the platform would be launched in the near future, and that they company won’t be making mobile games, but will be the platform operator.
The platform will be rolled out alongside its gaming-related verticals on one of the company’s e-commerce sites, giving developers access to virtual currency, data and payment options.
Mobile gaming in China accounts for $1.86 billion of the overall Chinese video gaming market, which is the third largest in the world.