In 2007, Perfect World, Kingsoft, NetDragon and Hugeman were successively listed on NASDAQ, the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited and the New York Stock Exchange, showing that the online game profit model has also won recognition from the mainstream capital market.
Recognition from the capital market reflects the pace at which China's online game market is evolving. CCID Consulting's surveys show that over 50% of the existing netizens have played online games, which has become a major form of leisure and entertainment for them. In 2007, China's online game market grew significantly. The market scale reached 11.35 billion Yuan, up 74.6% over 2006, level with the growth rate in 2003. This shows that China's online game market is entering a new growth cycle.
In 2008, China's online game market will maintain its high growth momentum and present new growth characteristics. Players seek more dominant power in games, and profit models have diversified. The competition in the online game market have transferred from product to culture.
There are almost 60 million users in China's IM market
In 2007, China's IM market entered a period of adjustment. The focus of market growth shifted. Service providers have started to pay more attention to the future growth of the mobile and enterprise IM markets.
In 2007, China's personal IM market users accounted for 92% of the total netizens in China. The entry threshold to the personal IM market has gradually been raised. Two major competitors have emerged in China's personal IM market.
Because service providers have squeezed opportunities from the personal IM market, mobile IM and enterprise IM have become new business growth points in the IM market. In the mobile IM market, there are almost 60 million users. Tencent, Microsoft and PICA have improved their products. However, because of existing operators' strong operational advantages, it is difficult for new service providers to make fast breakthroughs in the market.
Relatively speaking, enterprise IM applications will become the hotbed for new service providers. IM products do not have a high penetration rate among enterprises in China. International giants and emerging domestic enterprises are at the same starting line. Because enterprise IM is separate from the competition between the personal IM market and the mobile IM market, its growth environment is relatively stable.
China's search engine market reaches 2.93 billion Yuan
In 2007, China's search engine market grows fast, reaching a size of 2.93 billion Yuan, up 76.5% over 2006.
In 2007, China's search engine market became more concentrated. The gap between vendors has further widened. The first-tier vendors consisting of Baidu, Google and Yahoo (China) have a market share of 92.2%. The structure of the market is basically that of an oligarch monopoly. There are many highlights in the vertical search fields. These include e-business, living services search, job seeking, talent, shopping, real estate and tourism. These fields become more integrated with e-business. Meanwhile, the search engine market will see competitions centering around improving user experiences.
Transaction volume in China's e-business market is expected to reach 1.7 trillion Yuan
In 2007, China's e-business market has maintained its previous solid growth momentum. In the first 10 months of the year, e-shopping accounted for 0.8% of the total national consumption, representing a growth of more than three times over 0.25% in 2006. E-business grew along with the changes in demand. It is no longer a network of traditional businesses. It has started to penetrate into all Internet fields and has gradually been integrated with many elements of the Internet. It has guided the Internet and even created user demand.
Looking at 2008, e-business will more widely integrate with Internet applications including search, IM and Web2.0 to improve user experience and promote eventual transactions. Yahoo, Google and other search enterprise will not sit idly by in the face of Baidu's C2C performance. They are bound to speed up their exploratory efforts in the e-business field, while Tencent, a representative of IM enterprises will continue to increase its e-business input and try to realize considerable transaction volume through huge user numbers. Numerous Web2.0 enterprises need to make an effort to look for a cut-in point into e-business to solve their profitability problem. Portal websites will also start to consider how to make use of their flow advantages to come out of the constraint of their monolithic profit models through e-business.
