Chinese electronic game companies maintained steady revenue gains in 2019 even though sales growth at home lagged behind markets abroad amid an unfavorable domestic regulatory environment, according to new market data.

Foreign revenue of Chinese games totaled $11 billion in 2019, a 16.7% gain from the previous year, according to a report issued Wednesday (link in Chinese) by Chinese industry research firm Gamma Data. That was an uptick from 2018’s growth of 15.8% and 2017’s 14.5%.

At home, China’s game revenue grew 8.7% in 2019 to $33 billion, the data showed. While this was up from the previous year’s growth of 5.3%, it was a far cry from the 23% increase in 2017.

Overall, Chinese game revenue grew 10.6% in 2019 to $44 billion, the research firm said.

Many of China’s domestic gaming segments showed downward trends, according to the data. Annual revenue growth for the country’s dominant mobile game sector has slowed steadily since 2013, when it expanded 246.9%. In 2019, revenue for the segment rose 13% to $21.64 billion, the slowest pace in six years.

Desktop game revenue declined for a second year, shrinking 0.4%, while that of browser-based games fell by double digits for the fourth year, declining 22.9% in 2019, according to the report. Console game revenue grew 8.9% to $770 million, compared with 2018’s increase of 12.7%.

One major outlier was single-player games, which grew 341.4% from 2018, the data showed. Gamma attributed the jump to maturing distribution platforms and a steady release of titles in the category. Also bucking the trend were e-sports games, whose revenue rose 16.2%, an increase of 2 percentage points from the previous year.

Among game-streaming platforms, Douyu led with 31.4% market share, followed by Huya with 21.3%, Kuaishou with 18.5% and Bilibili with 17.1%, based on the first six months of the year.

The Chinese government has increasingly tightened its grip on the country’s gaming industry since 2018, with measures that included a 10-month freeze on issuing licenses for new titles, age restrictions, time and spending limits, permissible hours, and even real-name registration.

In the first half of 2019, sales of Chinese-made games in foreign markets increased 20.2% year-on-year to $5.6 billion, according to the official China Game Publishers Association.

Contact reporter Dave Yin (davidyin@caixin.com)

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