U.S. mobile industry revenue about to be overtaken by China

Niko Partners' 2015 Chinese Mobile Gaming report has predicted that, by the end of 2015, the Chinese mobile games market will have surpassed that of the U.S. in terms of revenue. 

According to an estimate provided by SuperData, U.S. mobile games revenue will reach $4.5 billion by the end of the year. In contrast, Niko's report predicts that by the end of 2015, China's mobile revenue will reach $5.5 billion - up from $3.3 billion last year. 

The report also revealed that Riot Games, GLU, and Pocket Gems investor, Tencent, continues to dominate China's mobile market, suggesting that the WeChat creator, which held over 50 percent of the market share in 2014, will control even more by the end of the year. 

Despite the burgeoning success of mobile gaming in the region, Lisa Cosmas Hanson, founder of Niko Partners, has warned developers that adopting a hit and hope localization policy will likely lead to failure. 

“We believe that games become popular because they fill a void for gamers. It is important to evaluate what voids there are in Chinese culture, and then match game development to those as well as to the gamer behavior and characteristics of a good mobile game in a popular genre,” said Cosmas Hanson.

“With that mobile game developers may find their way to the next big Chinese hit game, because hoping to make it big with an international title lobbed to a Chinese publisher for localization is not an effective path to success.”