Chinese enterprises to invest more in overseas gaming firms   

Xu Yiran, vice president of Perfect World

San Francisco (ECNS) -- The 2013 Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) was held at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco on Tuesday, attracting many game-developers from North America and elsewhere.

"One of our purposes here is to search for investors and investment opportunities," said Xu Yiran, vice president of Perfect World (NASDAQ:PWRD) and member of the Global Game Stars Competition at the GMIC.

Ranked No. 1 for 6 consecutive years in terms of game exports in China, Perfect World released its first global gaming investment plan, called "PWIN," in mid 2013.

The company made successful investments in mobile games in Japan, South Korea and North America after the announcement of its plan.

In the past few years, Perfect World has caught the eye of the world after it acquired American Runic Games, the Japanese online game distributor C&C Media, and the North American team Cryptic Studios.

Mobile games have created a particularly strong opportunity for Perfect World.

The company has diversified its investment in developing games for PC, TV, console, and especially mobile devices, Xu said. Perfect World can provide capital, research and development technology, operational platforms, global channels and rich experience in the industry, he added.

A survey shows that the amount of American game players reached 126 million last year, and the revenue of mobile games went up to 1.78 billion US dollars. Half of American mobile phone users became mobile game players and the proportion is still increasing rapidly.

The growth of the Canadian market is even faster. Eighty percent of Canadian families have smart phones or tablet computers. Of those mobile terminals, the usage rate of mobile games is up to 25 percent, making them the favorite for Canadian game players.

The number of experienced game developers has risen to 17,000 in Canada, and hundreds of game-developing teams are developing mobile games.

Investment bank Digi-Capital said in a report that the turnover of the international games industry in 2012 reached 4 billion US dollars, hitting the highest in history.

Chinese enterprises will increase investment in overseas games, analysts have said. Many journalists at the GMIC observed that Chinese enterprises have great interest in the American mobile network and internet markets. China's tech titans, whose interest is not only with the mobile network market and internet market in China, have high expectations of America.