Chart of the Week

Chart of the Week: Chinese mobile gamers are playing for longer and more often

Frequency & time in-game on the rise, says Umeng

Chart of the Week: Chinese mobile gamers are playing for longer and more often
Chinese mobile analytics outfit Umeng has tracked the app usage patterns of China's smartphone owners throughout 2012, and compared its findings to data from previous years.

It's discovered that the population is playing games for longer and more often.

The amount of time spent in apps daily, and the frequency with which users are opening apps, have increased across almost all categories, in fact.

Video apps, for instance, were opened 24 percent more often in 2012 against the previous year, and the average amount of time spent in these applications is up 259 percent.

In the game

The rise in time spent in-app hasn't been quite so sharp in the games category, but it's certainly increasing. In 2012, Chinese mobile gamers spent an average of almost 50 percent more time in games per day than in previous years.

And China's smartphone users are firing up games more frequently too. Umeng's figures show an almost 50 percent increase in app usage frequency.



Western developers who find themselves tempted by the size of the Chinese mobile market shouldn't be too hasty, though.

As Yodo1 CEO Henry Fong noted in his GDC talk earlier this week, successfully entering the Chinese market takes a lot more than a quick translation job.

You can find out more about Umeng's assessment of the Chinese mobile market in its China Mobile Internet 2012 Review insight report.
Staff Writer

PocketGamer.biz's news editor 2012-2013