Wandoujia App Store: October’s Rising Star in China’s $4 Billion Android Games Market

Android Games in China Generate $4 Billion This Year

This year, mobile games will account for 29% of China’s $22.2 billion games market. Of the $6.5 billion revenues generated on smartphones and tablets, $4.0 billion (61%) comes from Android stores, up from $2.9 billion in 2014. Newzoo’s full-year 2015 estimates are just slightly higher than its projections released at the start of the year. Recently, other analytics firms have made drastic upward adjustments of their revenues, suddenly realizing the true size of the Chinese mobile games market.

Newzoo expects the Android gaming market in China to surpass $6 billion in 2018 as total mobile games revenues soar past $10 billion.

Top Android Games in China in October

In October, the Top 20 Android Grossing Games were stable at the top, with the top four games stable from the previous month. Happy Elements’ Anipop is reigning supreme as the #1 game in the revenues ranking as well as the Top 20 Android Games by Install. Tencent’s We MOBA maintained its position after its debut in September as #2 grossing game. The live MOBA title also saw the biggest gains in the install ranking, jumping six places for a #15 spot. In the Top 10 Android App Stores, Wandoujia climbed two spots to break into the top five app stores by increasing its coverage rate by 1%.

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Wandoujia Breaks into the Top 5 App Stores

In October, Wandoujia gained two spots and increased its installed base to 7% to break into the top 5 app stores, displacing Huawei and HiMarket in the process. This is the first time the platform has held the #5 position since December 2014. The Beijing-based company is led by CEO Junyu Wang, a former user-experience designer at Google who helped secure Wandoujia $120 million in funding from Japanese Mobile telco SoftBank back in 2014. Unlike other app stores, Wandoujia started as a desktop manager for Android, not a mobile app, and focused on building an app search engine instead of an app store. Differentiating itself from the mass of app stores because of its unique app search model, Wandoujia has since helped apps like Flipboard, LINE and Evernote launch in China. In early 2015, it was reported that the platform had reached more than 450 million users, who had downloaded more than 1.6 billion apps.

Google Play to launch Chinese Version in 2016

Last week, Reuters reported that Google aims to launch the China version of its app store next year, its first major foray into the Chinese market since ending localized product support in 2010. Google largely pulled its services out of China in a refusal to self-censor its search results. Google has lost ground in most of its major services, especially search and video streaming, to Chinese players. In contrast, Apple has complied with local laws, was China’s #1 tech brand by revenues in 2014, and managed to earn $58.7 billion in fiscal 2015 in Greater China, making it Apple’s second-biggest market. It will be interesting to see if Google will be able to move back into China, with Google Play leading the charge. For now, the app store remains at the bottom end of our rankings at #10. For a more in-depth look at the unique app store ecosystem in China, see our China Mobile Games Monitor.

Other Key Takeaways:

Minecraft holds stable as #3 grossing game, making Mojang the only Western publisher in the Top 20 Android Grossing Games.
Yinhan’s Space Hunter climbed one spot to #5 grossing game. The action title switched places with Tencent’s MMORPG Legend of Mir 2, which hasn’t seen a decline since its August launch.
The biggest gains in the revenues ranking was seen by JJ Dou Di Zhu. The card game climbed five places to re-enter the rankings at #17.
In the install rankings, Tencent’s Happy Lord (QQ Official Version) climbed one spot to #2, displacing Zplay’s popular gem elimination puzzle game Pop Star.
Minecraft also gained a position to be the #7 game by installs in October, displacing IDreamSky’s Subway Surfers.
Mojang is one of two Western publishers in the install ranking. The other is Outfit7 Limited. Headquartered in London, the company is the developer and publisher of Talking Tom, a game that lets players take care of a pet cat. The game also allows players to create videos of Tom and share it via e-mail or YouTube. In October, Talking Tom 2 climbed one spot to #16 game by installs.