China’s Entertainment Industry Is Expanding Overseas
Chinese video platform Bilibili, the YouTube of China, has launched localized services in Thailand and Malaysia in December 2020, marking the company’s first landing in Southeast Asia and joining the race for eyeballs against Chinese peers Tencent and iQIYI. The Thai version of Bilibili positions itself mainly as a site for watching anime and Bilibili Thailand has created Facebook and Twitter accounts. KrAsia reported that the Thai version Bilibili has racked up more than 1 million installs.
According to Globalnewswire, for the first quarter of 2021, the company expects net revenues to be between RMB 3.70 billion and RMB 3.80 billion. This month, Bilibili received the Hong Kong stock exchange’s approval for its proposed listing.
Meanwhile, iQIYI, a leading online entertainment service in China, entered into agreements with TV networks in South Korea and Australia in December 2020 to broadcast the suspense thriller The Bad Kids produced by iQIYI. This suspense series was aired on CHANNEL A, a South Korean mainstream TV network, making it the first Chinese modern drama to be shown on the channel.
In addition, the pandemic accelerated gaming business growth, and some Chinese game makers expanded overseas. Sensor Tower showed that the top 30 Chinese mobile game publishers accounted for around 29% of global mobile game revenue in 2020. Tencent, NetEase and MiHoYo were the top 3 grossing Chinese mobile game publishers. NetEase’s Fantasy Westward Journey hit a daily revenue record in December 2020, leading to a 16% increase in revenue. It added that China-developed shooting and simulation games were particularly popular with overseas players.
Thanks to the rise of social media, China’s entertainment industry is busily expanding overseas. As China’s domestic market has grown fiercely competitive, the investment required to build a user base in China has become so high that Internet companies would need to consider expanding to other markets. Moreover, the overseas success of some Chinese Internet companies like Tiktok is boosting the confidence of others in their ability to venture abroad as well. Though the future is promising, many experts noted that China still has a long way to go to beat its western counterparts as the target audience of China entertainment market is mainly people with Asian cultural backgrounds.
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