China mobile game navigation depth report: space, pattern and trend

Core summary

The scale of China’s mobile travel market to the sea will reach 167.4-215.2 billion yuan under neutral and optimistic forecasts by 2024. (1) In 2021, the global game market reached US $175.8 billion (1.1 trillion yuan), with nearly 3 billion players. It is expected to reach US $218.7 billion (1.4 trillion yuan) in 2024. (2) From 2017 to 2021, the scale of the global mobile game market increased from US $56 billion to US $90.7 billion, with a year-on-year growth rate of 8.93% / 12.30% / 25.99% / 5.10% in 20182021. During the epidemic, the growth rate of mobile games increased, with a compound growth rate of 15% in 20202021, still maintaining a rapid growth rate. We believe that the improvement of smartphone penetration is the core driving factor. At present, the global smartphone penetration rate is nearly 50%, and it is still in the user dividend period. Global mobile game market size = population smartphone penetration ARPU. Based on the conservative / neutral / optimistic prediction of the above three indicators, we believe that the global mobile game market size will reach US $102.1/116127.3 billion in 2024. (3) The revenue of mobile games in China was 1038.8 billion yuan, accounting for 28.8% of the overseas mobile game market in 2021. We refer to Hollywood’s share in the international market outside North America in 2019 (54.3%) before the epidemic to see the theoretical space limit for cultural products to go to sea. Under the conservative / neutral / optimistic scenario, assuming that the overseas market share of China’s self-developed mobile tourism will be 25% / 35% / 45% by 2024, the sea revenue range of China’s self-developed mobile tourism will be 97.175248.040 billion yuan.

Chinese manufacturers have first mover advantages, operational advantages and strong theme innovation ability in the field of mobile games. We believe that the market share of going to sea will continue to increase, and the space is expected to reach 167.4-215.2 billion yuan under neutral and optimistic forecasts. For most Chinese game manufacturers, going to sea will double their theoretical market space.

The pattern of Chinese mobile travel to the sea: top3 is relatively stable, top20 changes significantly, and the pattern is concentrated to the head. (1) From 2019 to 2021, the total revenue of China’s self-developed hand travel to the sea from the US, Japan and South Korea accounted for 67.60% / 60.27% / 58.31%. In the US market, the revenue increased from US $2.75 billion to US $5.242 billion. The overall trend of Japanese market revenue was upward, and South Korea declined slightly. The compound growth rate of Chinese manufacturers in Germany, France and Britain in the past two years has reached 28%, and their income fluctuates but shows an upward trend in the main markets of the Middle East and Latin America. From 2019 to 2021, the proportion of revenue from markets other than China’s top ten overseas revenue continued to rise, representing the real “globalization” of China’s mobile travel to the sea. (2) SLG, RPG and shooting are the categories with the highest proportion of mobile travel to the sea in China, of which SLG accounts for more than 40%. The proportion of eliminated categories increased significantly from 2019 to 2021, becoming the top 4 categories. On the whole, it can be seen that the marine categories are more diverse. (3) From 2018 to 2021, the head concentration of China’s mobile travel market continued to rise, and the Cr20 episodes in 20182021 were 36.79% / 44.17% / 50% / 53.35% respectively. The competition among head manufacturers was fierce, the ranking changed frequently, and the threshold of head echelon increased year by year. In 2021, MIHA tour, Tencent (excluding supercell, etc.), Lilith, Netease and Wuhu 37 Interactive Entertainment Network Technology Group Co.Ltd(002555) were the top 5 manufacturers in China’s revenue from going to sea. MIHA tour rose abruptly in 2021, with an annual water flow of about 9.463 billion yuan; Head to sea products “original God” and “pubg mobile”

The annual water flow of “state of survival” at sea is 8.736/76/4.785 billion yuan respectively, of which the highest monthly water flow of “original God” overseas is expected to exceed 1.5 billion yuan. (4) Compared with China, the concentration of leading manufacturers in overseas mobile game markets is low and shows a downward trend, providing sufficient space for Chinese manufacturers to go to sea. At present, the top 5 overseas regional markets are basically local enterprises (Japan and South Korea) or manufacturers in other regions (playtika and playrix enter the top 5 in Europe and America). Chinese mobile game manufacturers gradually open the market and cultivate local players through rich category and theme supply. Represented by the SLG category that Chinese manufacturers are good at, equipped with global themes, it has opened up the market in the United States, Japan and South Korea and entered the top 100 or even top 20 of local revenue Groundbreaking products, such as the original God, also broke the historical situation that it was difficult for RPG in North America to enter the head.

“Navigators” in the era of mobile navigation: from the blue sea to the Red Sea, big manufacturers pay more and more attention. The dark horse has a systematic playing method or prominent research and transportation characteristics, and the old manufacturers stick to their advantages and wait for a break. Tencent and Netease pay more and more attention to overseas, both put forward the goal of accounting for 50% of overseas game revenue, establish overseas distribution brands / pay attention to overseas distribution, layout global themes and large IP works, and look at the multi terminal market through the acquisition and layout of high-quality overseas studios. Byte has the unique traffic advantages of Chinese manufacturers overseas. It has also accelerated its sailing through the acquisition of high-quality CP and agents, topped the Southeast Asian mobile game market and made some gains in Japan. Lilith and mihayou have sprung up in 2019 and 2021 with distinctive characteristics.

Wuhu 37 Interactive Entertainment Network Technology Group Co.Ltd(002555) with a variety of popular products, the ranking rose sharply to the top 5 in 2021. There are abundant reserves of follow-up products, and the ranking is expected to continue to improve. With three popular self-developed SLG models, funplus has a global R & D layout, actively develops RPG, puzzle, FPS and other categories, and attaches importance to leading technology application and IP building, which is worthy of continuous attention. “Smart star communication system” (smart star communication, longchuang Yuedong and Jiangyu interaction) adheres to the advantages of SLG and has entered the top 20 of going to sea in 2021 We focus on companies with systematic playing methods, multi category layout, understanding of users in major regional markets and the ability to integrate research and transportation overseas.

Investment suggestion: Although the competition will be more intense when China mobile travel goes to sea from the blue sea to the Red Sea, the overseas market still provides broad space. China mobile travel to sea is expected to achieve a growth of 60-100% in three years under neutral and optimistic forecasts. Based on this, the mobile game industry is rated as “recommended”. To highlight the 3535 yes. Others focus on Tencent, Netease, Alibaba, byte beat (unlisted), MIHA Tour (unlisted), Lilith (unlisted).

Risk tips: overseas policy supervision risk, legal risk, international relations risk, intensified industry competition, fluctuation of foreign currency exchange rate, loss of core talents in the industry, change of player preference, launch progress and market performance of new products are less than expected, overseas traffic cost increases, focus on the company’s performance is not up to expectations, market style switching Companies and patterns outside China are not fully comparable, the industry valuation center is down, and relevant data and materials are for reference only.

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