Chinas mobile handset game market was undergoing scale development in 2005 and the total market value reached RMB 1.2 billion.

Currently, mobile handset games mainly rely on three technological platforms, i.e. the short message (SMS), WAP and JAVA/BREW. Of the three businesses, game service also is an important part. So from this angle, the subscriber number and the market scale of SMS, WAP and JAVA/BREW are closely related to the scale of mobile handset game industry. With the development of JAVA terminal technologies, the promotion by the top-two operators, which are China Mobile and China Unicom, and the strong support of service providers, the subscriber number of JAVA/BREW was increased sharply in 2005.

According to Research and Markets , the market value of Chinas mobile handset game market was RMB 1.2 billion in 2005, among which SMS games shared 42.6% of the market, WAP shared 37.5%, JAVA shared 11.3% and BREW shared 8.5%. Except that the market scale of SMS games declined, the others all enjoyed an increase. The market scale of WAP games exceeded RMB 400 million, the market scale of JAVA and BREW games both exceed RMB 100 million. BREW games enjoyed the highest increase rate.

With the improvement of the network environment and the technological platform development of WAP, JAVA and BREW, Chinas mobile handset game industry shows a large- scale tendency.

By revenues of WAP games in 2005, the top six service providers were sequentially KONG, Shenzhen Xun Tian, MNC, TOM, Sina and Tencent. The monthly income of each service provider ranges from thousands of RMB to a million. Among these service providers, KONG has obvious advantages over others.

As an essential source to WAP, Mobile handset game accounting for about 10% of the total income of WAP service.

In the forthcoming years, the commercial utilization of 3G in China will promote the mobile handset game market in a rapid growth trend and expand the subscriber scale accordingly. The mobile handset game business will experience a steady development and the market scale will exceed RMB 3.1 billion by 2008.

In 2005, Chinas WAP game subscribers reached 7.9 million, and the market scale reached RMB 450 million, up by 103.1% and 422.0% over the year of 2004 respectively. By the end of 2006, the subscribers of mobile handset games in China will reach 23.11 million, up by 62.9% over the year of 2005 and the market share of SMS games will decrease greatly, sharing only 5% of the total mobile handset game subscribers. Subscribers of WAP games will increase obviously and account for 60% of the total mobile handset game subscribers. Considering JAVA/BREW games, the subscriber number of JAVA and BREW will share 29.4% and 5% of the total mobile handset game subscribers respectively. The market scale of WAP games will sharply increase to RMB 800 million by the end of 2006.

For the operators, service providers and handset terminal manufacturers, Chinas enlarging mobile handset game market will provide great investment opportunities.