DeNA's Mobage Taps Into Chinese Social Network's Audience

Newsbrief: Expanding its footprint in Asia, Japanese firm DeNA revealed a partnership to extend its mobile social gaming network Mobage to users of Chinese social network Kiaixin001. With this deal, Kaixin001's more than 120 million registered users can use their existing IDs and passwords to access Mobage China. They can also download the Mobage China Android application through Kaixin001's own smartphone app to play localized versions of popular Japanese mobile games. DeNA's Chinese branch intends to "continue to aggressively expand its user base in the market" through other local companies -- which will be critical for its growth in the country, considering Kaixin's audience is much smaller than Tencent's 700 million monthly users and Sina Weibo's 250 million registered users. DeNA has recently made a number of partnerships in Asia meant to extend the Mobage platform's reach, including agreements with South Korean web portal Daum Communications and Vietnamese online game publisher VNG Corporation.