Online Gaming in China is Going To Be Hot The Coming Years

Niko Partners, the market research firm, has reported this week that they expect the Chinese video game industry to grow to $9.2 billion USD by 2014, over a double from 2010.

The market was $3.57 billion in 2009, and expected to grow to $4.5 billion this year.

"While the global economic downturn hurt videogame publishers in much of the world, China's online game industry reflected no pain in 2009 and gamers continued to embrace online games as the best inexpensive source of social entertainment available," says Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. "While the era of online gaming is generating lots of interest and growth opportunity in the West, China is one of the countries where online gaming is a well established market segment that extends its reach to more and more Chinese consumers every year."

Overall, 63 percent of gamers have increased their game playing time in the past year.

I am looking for Chinese companies that can benifit from this trend. Of course there are the big ones such as Giant Interactive (GA), Shanda Games (GAME) and some other big players.  One company that is expanding their game business and came out with some important news today is:

China Techfaith Wireless Communication Technology Limited (CNTF)

This one is on my radar screen and will need some close attention.