China's mobile gaming industry taking world market by storm

A rising number of Chinese mobile game publishers have seen fast development in the global market, with nine domestic gaming companies earning a place on a new list of the world's top 52 app publishers.

Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's top gaming and social media operator, retained its No 1 spot in App Annie's Top 52 Publishers list. Chinese leading gaming outfit NetEase remained at second in the ranking, followed by US-based gaming powerhouse Activision Blizzard.

New mobile game publishers from China on the list include Lilith, 37games, Long Tech Network and Yotta Games.

The list is comprised of the top 52 mobile publishers by combined iOS App Store and Google Play revenue estimates in 2019. These rankings are based on earnings from paid downloads and in-app purchases.

Asian-headquartered publishers dominated the new list, making up more than half of the Top 52 rankings, including five of the top 10.

In fact, overseas markets have become important revenue earners for Chinese gaming companies. Driven by strong increases in export earnings, gaming revenues from domestic market and export incomes jumped 10.6 percent to over 310 billion yuan ($43.8 billion) in 2019, per a report by Gamma Data Corp.

This year, Chinese developers earned $11.19 billion from self-designed online games in overseas markets, up 16.7 percent year-on-year according to Gamma Data.

"Taking into account the competitive advantages of their self-developed products, we expect Chinese gaming companies to gain more revenue and development opportunities in the global market," Gamma Data said.