All western mobile companies are questioned about their China strategy, as if the country's some sort of one-shot opportunity for glory.

Chris Shen, who's vice president of The9's mobile business unit, has a very different take on the situation, however.

"The market is in its initial stages. It's fragmented and very complicated in terms of distribution," he explains.

"There aren't app stores like in the west. There are over 100 different channels people can use to download apps and games."

Similarly, while iOS and Android are growing fast, the vast majority of China's 900 million mobile users are using feature phones, with Java dominating the market.

Future imperfect

Even for a company like The9, which is one of China's largest online PC gaming outfits, and has its shares listed on the NASDAQ, this makes the mobile gaming market tricky to operate successfully in.

It's been exploring the sector since 2008, setting up its mobile business unit in 2010 to target the mobile internet; supporting the current mass market while laying future foundations.

"We focus on platform, product and publishing," Shen says of his goals.

The platform part is provided by The9 Game Zone, a social mobile network which is based on OpenFeint, but heavily localised and modified for the Chinese market. It includes support for Java games and feature phones.

Friendly faces

In terms of product and publishing, The9 is heavily promoting itself as a partner for western developers to get their games - notably Android - into the Chinese market.

"We provide a one -stop shop for developers. We work with 50 channels ranging from operators to OEMs and we've published 680 games," Shen reveals.

Indeed, The9 is now operating Sony's PlayNow channel for its Xperia devices in China. It also has its own in-house development teams and has invested in US social mobile company CrowdStar and US PC online gaming outfit Red 5.

But it's not simply presenting content to the Chinese market that's the issue.

"There are local regulations, individual channel requirements, and dealing with pirated games, as well as the usual localisation and cultural issues," Shen says.

"That's why it's much better for western developers to work with local partner like The9."

All together now

Of course, The9 isn't the only company offering these services.

Japanese social mobile gaming platform vendors DeNA and GREE are active in the country. Other Chinese outfits mixing up publishing and social networks include Papaya, iDreamSky and CocoaChina.

Yet such is the nascent state of the Chinese mobile gaming industry, Shen says he doesn't view them - or anyone - as competition, at least not right now.

"I don't think either DeNA and GREE are well established in China yet," he ponders.

"The problem for all of us is that we need to grow the market. It would be great if we could all work together to look for the best business models and games.

"Then, in the future, it will be competitive."