China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Game Time: 5 Must-Knows About China’s Mobile Gaming Market
China has the largest mobile gaming market in the world – an exciting market not just for game-lovers, but also for those into marketing and advertising. Shanshan Cao, Senior market analyst China at Newzoo, recently shared the ins and out of China’s hot gaming world. What’s on Weibo was there to take note.

Published
7 years agoon

China has the largest mobile gaming market in the world – an exciting market not just for game-lovers, but also for those into marketing and advertising. Shanshan Cao, senior market analyst China at Newzoo, recently shared the ins and out of China’s hot gaming world. What’s on Weibo joined the event, that was hosted by Digital China.
China has the largest gaming market in the world – and it is booming business. During the Digital China event (中国数码), a Sino-Dutch initiative focused on Chinese digital innovation, Shanshan Cao, senior market analyst at Newzoo, recently discussed the latest developments and opportunities in China’s gaming market, that is more and more focused on mobile gaming.
China’s Mobile Gaming Industry
“I love to play games,” Shanshan Cao smilingly starts her talk. Every day after work, she comes home to her favorite PC games. The rise of mobile gaming has now also made it possible to enjoy her games outside of the house. Not many people are that familiar with ‘mobile gaming’, but without realizing, she says, many of us already are mobile gamers. The great success of mobile games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds has proved that mobile gaming is quickly taking over a huge chunk of the international gaming market.

Shanshan Cao, Sr. Market Analyst China of Newzoo.
The US currently has around 139 million mobile gamers. The numbers vary, but according to Cao, China now has approximately 183 million gamers, and it is believed that 71% of the online population of China is an (occasional) online gamer, making it the largest online game market in the world.
One of the key drivers behind this online gaming environment is the fact that China is a mobile-first country. China’s average mobile user owns a relatively cheap but high-performance mobile phone, which enables them to play mobile games. As the quality of China’s smartphones keeps on rising, so are the possibilities and developments within China’s mobile gaming market.
What makes the market so interesting for companies, Cao explains, is their audience: China’s mobile gamers are young, mainly living in the first and second-tier cities of China, and half of them are female. Most importantly, they generally are fervent users of QQ, WeChat, and other social media, and like to spend money online as digital consumers who do not mind paying for movies, music, or games.
There are many different ways in which mobile games can bring revenue. There are paid games, or games with in-game payment options where users can generate a new life after they are game over by paying for it.
But the commercial power of free mobile games also should not be underestimated, Cao says: in-game advertising could earn money in various ways. The social-media-loving audiences of mobile games make them very interesting for brands who can advertise through precise targeting and crossover cooperations.
For example, Cao mentions, brands could make their products extra appealing by giving away in-game rewards. In this way, one would not only buy a L’Oreal shampoo, but also get ‘extra lives’ or other in-game rewards with it, making both a product and a game more attractive for gamers.
China’s Mobile Gaming Market: 5 Things You Need to Know
By now, China’s mobile games market has risen to 41% of the total Chinese games market. Shanshan Cao names the 5 main characteristics of this market; the must-know facts for anyone interested in being part of it.
1. Highly Competitive Market
China’s mobile games market is a highly competitive one. Right now, it is dominated by big players Netease and Tencent, that, amongst many others, produced the hugely popular Kāixīn Xiāo Xiāo Lè 开心消消乐 (see image).
Besides these giants, there are also many other big players – such as independent mobile game company iDreamsky. This makes it challenging for smaller companies to enter the market.
It is especially difficult for non-Chinese companies to enter China’s mobile gaming market, but there are also many opportunities for marketers and gaming companies that make it worthwhile. China has the world’s largest gaming market that is still continuing to grow; an exciting and booming place to be for companies that are not afraid of a challenge.
2. Restrictions & Censorship
Even without the big players, the Chinese gaming market is somewhat hard to enter for non-Chinese companies due to local restrictions and censorship. There is no Google Play Store, for example, as all Google products including Gmail, Google search, and the app store have been blocked since 2010.
This is just one of the many local restrictions foreign companies would have to deal with. But, Shanshan notes, one major possibility for foreign companies to tap into the market is to establish an own company in China or to work with a local partner that has a thorough understanding of the market and its restrictions and possibilities.
Swedish gaming company Mojang recently opted for the latter, as it teamed up with Chinese game giant Netease to develop a China-tailored version of their hugely popular Minecraft game. It currently holds the number one spot in the popular mobile games rank in China under the name of ‘My World’ (我的世界).
3. Fan Economy
Many of China’s popular online game are based on popular Chinese literature, comics, anime or reality TV shows – this ‘crossover success’ is an important part of China’s mobile gaming market.
Star Wars is a good example of how ’fan economy’ can benefit multiple markets, including the gaming one; the Star Wars: Commander game became a number one hit in China earlier this year, generating more than 1 million downloads in just four days within its release.
Shanshan encourages foreign companies to use mobile big data to help them understand Chinese consumers and their preferences.
4. Going Global
The competitive domestic gaming market has led to an increasing internationalization of China’s gaming companies. One of these companies is Snail Games, that was established in Suzhou, China, in 2000, and set up its LA-based USA company in 2010.
Going global poses a challenge for these companies, as they have to adjust their design to a more western taste, which often means making it less ‘cute’ or adding some game elements and promotion methods that speaks to a western audience. For the USA launch of the game Taichi Panda, for example, Snail Games hired famous American martial artist, judoka and actress Ronda Rousey to be their spokesman to make the game more ‘American’.
There are also companies, including Tencent and Alibaba, that are all about buying; they enter the western market and buy up local companies like Miniclip or Pocket Gems.
Shanshan notes that the internationalisation of China’s mobile gaming market also forms an opportunity for foreign gaming companies; if they do not have a strategy to enter China themselves, it is also commercially interesting to help Chinese games to do localisation in countries outside of China.
5. Mobile E-Sport Games
Mobile e-sport is bigger in China than it is in the West. Many bestseller games have proven that e-sport can make much money on console – but it is even more interesting when people can play it on their phone whenever they want to play it. Adding a competitive feature, like is done in Hero Pro League, makes it even more appealing to players.
One of the people who have made this market bigger is e-sports lunatic Wang Sicong, who also happens to be the son of the richest man in China.
Shanshan stresses that e-sports are important within China’s mobile gaming, but that it is not necessarily the dominant genre: “At this moment, China’s mobile gaming market has so much potential – anything is possible,” she says – again reaffirming that China’s mobile gaming market is anything but game over.
– By Manya Koetse
Follow @WhatsOnWeibo
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©2016 Whatsonweibo. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce our content without permission – you can contact us at info@whatsonweibo.com.
Manya Koetse is the founder and editor-in-chief of whatsonweibo.com. She is a writer, public speaker, and researcher (Sinologist, MPhil) on social trends, digital developments, and new media in an ever-changing China, with a focus on Chinese society, pop culture, and gender issues. She shares her love for hotpot on hotpotambassador.com. Contact at manya@whatsonweibo.com, or follow on Twitter.

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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
China’s ‘Chanel’? Chinese Beauty Brand Florasis Is Raising Eyebrows on Weibo
Some netizens wonder if the Florasis PR team might have lost their marbles, as their strategy appears to have taken an unusual turn, featuring emotionally charged replies on Weibo.

Published
3 days agoon
September 27, 2023
Lost Marbles or marketing logic? Following its involvement in the Li Jiaqi ‘eyebrow pencil gate,’ Chinese beauty brand Florasis’ social media strategy has taken an unconventional turn. The domestic brand recently went trending after declaring its ambition to win over the global luxury cosmetic market, and its plans to challenge established giants like Louis Vuitton and Chanel.
In the world of Chinese cosmetic brands, all eyes are on Florasis (花西子) recently. This Chinese make-up brand gained significant attention earlier this month when the popular beauty influencer ‘Lipstick King’ Li Jiaqi promoted one of their eyebrow pencils during a livestream.
After some viewers questioned whether a single eyebrow pencil costing 79 yuan ($10.8) was perhaps too expensive, Li lashed out and suggested viewers should instead ask themselves if they worked hard enough to deserve a raise.
That moment triggered a social media storm (read here), and suddenly everyone knew about Florasis, which is known as Huāxīzǐ (花西子) in China.
“Huaxi Coins” and Public Mockery
The incident sparked a series of memes and discussions, and among them, the question of what one can buy with 79 yuan in China today was a big one.
While some suggested they could feed an entire family for one day with 79 yuan, others said that it would buy their office lunches for a week. This humorous situation gave rise to the term ‘Huaxi Coins’ or ‘Floracash’ (花西币), with netizens playfully using the price of one Florasis eyebrow pencil’s price as a new currency unit (one ‘Huaxi Coin’ equals 79 yuan/$10.8).
Although Li Jiaqi apologized to his viewers soon after his controversy, it took some time for Florasis to respond the controversy the brand found itself embroiled in.
Florasis, a brand established in Hangzhou in 2017, is deeply connected to Li Jiaqi, as he has been the chief brand ambassador since 2019 and has actively participated in their product development.

Li Jiaqi x Huaxizi/Florasis.
The entire social media storm prompted a heightened focus on why Florasis products are perceived as relatively expensive.
As reported by Qing Na at Dao Insights, one post that gained significant traction on September 12 revealed that a five-piece Jade Makeup Brush set from Florasis, priced at 919 RMB ($126.28), was, in fact, made by using synthetic fiber bristles, considered cheap and of lower quality. This revelation garnered over 240 million views in just a few hours, adding to the public mockery of the national beauty brand.
The Florasis Dream: Becoming a Leading International Luxury Brand
On September 19, Florasis/Huaxizi finally apologized on social media for its late response to the controversy, and the brand stated that the incident provided an opportunity for them to listen to “the voice of their consumers,” although they did not delve deeper into the price of their products.

Florasis apology on Weibo, screenshot.
Although people criticized the letter posted by Florasis and the words they used in it, their decision to release a statement initially seemed fruitful: they gained 20,000 new followers in a single night.

Chinese netizens picking apart the apology letter posted by Huaxizi/Florasis. Via Xiaohongshu user @边际平衡術.
While the entire situation drew more attention to the Chinese make-up brand, it also seems to have prompted Florasis to reconsider its own position in the cosmetics industry, both in China and globally. Because on September 26th, the brand publicly and somewhat suddenly declared its ambition of becoming a leading international luxury cosmetics brand.
“Me, Florasis, I’m 6,5 years old,” the post read: “I have a dream: to be a high-end brand, rooted in China, going global.”

Florasis announces its ambition to become a globally recognized make-up brand.
In their post, Florasis used a quote saying “A Positive Mindset Shapes Huaxizi’s Lifetime,” which is derived from the title of a well-known Chinese self-help book from 2012 called “A Positive Mindset Shapes a Woman’s Lifetime” (好心态决定女人一生).
One of the main ideas presented in this book, authored by Li Jin (李津), is that success can never come from a negative or pessimistic mindset; if you see yourself as a failure, you’re likely to fail, but if you envision success, you’re more likely to achieve it.
Next to Chanel: Confusion about Florasis’ Public Relations Tactics
The company’s ambition, on its own, may not be particularly surprising. As stated in a report published by Paicaijing (派财经), Florasis’ co-founder, Fei Man (飞慢), had previously questioned in an interview why Chinese brands were always associated with being cheap, expressing Florasis’ wish to break the “price ceiling” (价格天花板) and escape the ongoing “low price competition” (低价竞争) in China’s beauty industry by delivering high-quality products at a premium price.
However, the wording and the timing seemed odd, and the post created both banter and confusion about Florasis’ public relations tactics, especially because they did much more than that post alone.
On September 20th, approximately ten days after the ‘eyebrow pencil gate’ controversy, the company’s founder, Hua Mantian (花满天), made an announcement on his WeChat channel. He revealed that the brand would be distributing their premium eyebrow pencils, originally priced at 119 yuan ($16.3), during a livestream promotional event that night. They planned to give away free pencils to hundreds of viewers every ten minutes. By giving out over 10,000 free eyebrow pencils in total, the company allegedly hoped to gain more feedback on their product in order to further improve it. Over 400,000 people tuned in to that livestream.
Since then, Florasis seems to be doing all it can to catch the public’s attention, and some netizens even wonder if the editors at the Florasis PR team might have lost their marbles, as they keep posting a lot of unusual replies, – some emotional and somewhat unhinged, – to their own threads on their Weibo account.
Throughout September 26, the account posted dozens of texts/replies, responding to many netizens’ comments. Florasis not only declared its wish to be China’s ‘Chanel’ when it comes to beauty products, it also praised its own efforts in contributing to women’s mental health, preserving traditional culture, innovating cosmetics, and much more.
Their social media texts included phrases such as: “I’m super awesome,” or writing:
“I’m really becoming a bit emotional. I established my own laboratory at just three years old! We now have over 200 research partners, and their leader is Li Huiliang (李慧良), known as the “Number One in Chinese Cosmetics Research and Development.” He’s like a superstar in the industry. We have five big innovation research and development centers, over 7000 square meters, larger than a football field. Don’t I deserve a gold star sticker for that?”
And:
“As a Chinese brand, every generation has a mission. Our generation’s mission is to fight in the international market with high-end presence! You can mock and ridicule me, it’s ok [sad face emoji] I’m already neighbors with Louis Vuitton and Gucci at the [Hangzhou] West Lake [shopping street]! And I will be next to Chanel at Japan’s top-notch department store Isetan. Next up is France, Dubai, America, see you there!”
Subsequently, the hashtag “Florasis Says It’ll Be Side-to-Side with Chanel” (#花西子称要和香奈儿门对门#) received over 470 million views on Weibo. Another hashtag, “Florasis Wants to Be a High-end Brand” (#花西子称想做高端品牌#), received more than 220 million views.
Mad Marketing
By now, the hashtag “Huaxizi Lost It” (#花西子发疯#) has also gone trending on Chinese social media platform Weibo, where people have different thoughts on what might have triggered Florasis’ social media behavior.
While some people really think that Florasis has gone crazy, others see the entire ordeal as a social media spectacle meant to distract attention from what happened with Li Jiaqi, or as a cheap marketing stunt.
One poll conducted by Sina News asked people about the situation. The majority of respondents believed that the social media editor must have lost their mind, while others considered it just another version of “bad marketing is still marketing” – suggesting that even if the publicity strategy is cheap or questionable, it is still used as a marketing tactic to gain attention.
Another question is: does it even matter what the reason behind this unusual online media approach is?
If Florasis is really letting its PR team run wild, it is doing so at a crucial moment, shortly after a significant controversy that cast the brand in a negative light. This moment calls for careful control rather than unconventional tactics. Furthermore, the social media strategy appears to be at odds with Florasis’ typical marketing image, which emphasizes tradition, glamour, and perfection.
If Florasis is using this strategy to attract and divert attention, it also appears that this approach is not yielding the desired results, as many people express a common sentiment: “I didn’t purchase Florasis before, and I certainly won’t be buying it now.”
By Manya Koetse
With contributions by Miranda Barnes
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China Brands, Marketing & Consumers
Bad Apples? Chinese Actor Liu Jin Smashes iPhone 13 Pro Max, Anger over ‘Chinese’ Employee Photo on Apple Website
Who’s the bad Apple? There’s much ado about Apple on Chinese social media this week, but things turn out differently than expected.

Published
2 weeks agoon
September 19, 2023
There is a lot of Apple anger on Chinese social media this week. Two separate trending topics have ignited discussions. One revolves around Chinese actor Liu Jin, who smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store, while another one centers on an image of an Apple employee deemed inappropriate by Chinese netizens. But both viral trends have unfolded with surprisingly ‘juicy’ twists.
The Chinese actor Liu Jin (刘金) has become a big topic of discussion on Chinese social media this week for a remarkable statement he made in a 2-minute video that has gone viral.
The ‘statement video’ shows the actor angrily throwing his iPhone 13 Pro Max on the ground until it breaks, right in front of the Wangfujing Apple flagship store in Beijing, pledging he will never buy another Apple product again and accusing the company of being arrogant and overbearing after running into some repair issues.
Liu Jin is an actor who played in various productions, but he made his major breakthrough in 2015 when he played in the Chinese CCTV series Don’t Let me See (别让我看见) and in the successful comedy movie Goodbye Mr Loser (夏洛特烦恼).
This was not the only Apple incident going viral on Chinese social media this week. Another trending topic revolves around actor Liu Jin, who angrily smashed his iPhone 13 Pro Max in front of the Apple flagship store in Beijing. (Caps autogenerated, but you get the idea.) pic.twitter.com/MdPvnKqh1T
— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) September 19, 2023
In the video, recorded on September 17, Liu explains he just visited the Apple store to get his iPhone back after bringing it in for repair. Liu claimed that he bought his iPhone 13 Pro Max in August of 2022 through the official store and that, after a year, it had a hardware problem that needed to be fixed.

From the video by Liu.
According to Liu, the Apple store has now returned the iPhone to him without repairing it, saying that the phone was “modified without authoritization” by a third party, and that Liu should pay a 6,960 yuan ($950) fee to get it fixed.
Refusing to pay such an amount of money, and denying he got the phone through a third party, Liu then smashes the iPhone on the ground until it is broken, promising never to buy Apple again.
A hashtag related to the video was viewed a staggering 270 million times on Weibo, where it became a top trending topic (#演员刘金苹果店前怒摔iphone#).
Apple vs Huawei Rivalry
The actor’s recent actions have garnered considerable attention, primarily because they coincide with the escalating rivalry between Huawei and Apple. This rivalry has become a prominent topic of discussion in China recently, due to various things coming together at the same time.
Notably, Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 shortly after Huawei introduced its latest flagship, the Mate 60 Pro 5G. Noteworthy enough (and unlikely coincidentally),it was launched on the same date as the return of Huawei executive daughter Meng Wanzhou from Canada in 2021 (read here).
The official launch ceremony for Huawei’s new products is coming up on September 25, and people are hoping to find out more about the powerful Kirin 90000s chip that is being used by Huawei despite facing heavy US sanctions regarding Chinese access to crucial chip technology.
Simultaneously, reports emerged about alleged Chinese restrictions on iPhones within government and state agencies, resulting in a significant decline in Apple’s stock value. The Foreign Ministry later stated that that China has actually not issued any law, regulation, or policy document to ban the use of Apple phones.
All of these developments have reignited the ongoing tech giant competition in China, that is now about much more than smartphones alone and has come to symbolize geopolitical rivalry, encompassing themes of nationalism, anti-Western sentiments, and a growing sense of pride in products made in China.
Much Ado about Apple Employee Photo
As Liu’s phone-smashing video went viral, so did another controversy concerning an Apple customer service employee’s photo depicted on the official website of Apple.
A Chinese netizen pointed out that a photo of an Apple Watch Specialist representative on the Apple site may have been purposely “insulting China” (辱华) due to the appearance of the person in the photo.
Initially, many people thought the image was specifically used on the Chinese-language Apple site, and that it concerned a Chinese individual with a hairstyle that resembles a queue: a single long braid of hair that was traditionally worn by male subjects of China during the Qing.
Some people also thought the individual had a pockmark near the mouth and that their looks reinforces stereotypes surrounding Chinese appearances regarding eyes and forehead. The image therefore sparked wide-spread resistance among netizens who thought Apple deliberately and inappropriately used such an image to show Chinese individuals as being backward and unattractive.

online poll with nearly 198,000 likes on Weibo, asking if this photo is appropriate or not (the majority voted that the photo was not appropriate).
On the same day as Liu’s video first came out, September 17, the topic of the “braid-wearing customer service representative” went trending, and the hashtag of “how do you feel about the Apple China website image of the braided customer service representative” (#如何看苹果中国官网辫子客服形象#) has since received over 200 million views on Weibo.
Political commentator Hu Xijin (胡锡进) also responded to the issue, explaining how the Chinese people are particularly sensitive to issues related to “perceived insults to China by Westerners,” due to historical and cultural factors which are further amplified by current tensions in US-China and broader China-Western relations.
Hu therefore argues that “American and Western companies should be more careful and cautious when promoting their products and try to avoid using images and texts that could be misinterpreted by Chinese people.”1
Who’s the Bad Apple?
But to what extent is criticism of Apple reasonable in both incidents?
In the case of the “braid-wearing customer service representative”, it soon triggered a response from Apple’s customer service (#苹果客服回应辫子客服形象#, hashtag with 180 million views) and led to more information.
It has since become evident that many assumptions about the image were unfounded. Contrary to the initial belief that the photo was exclusive to the Chinese page, it was also featured on Apple’s official websites in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and other countries.
Furthermore, it was revealed that the Apple employee in question is not of Chinese descent at all; she is a Native American female employee (also see Wen Hao’s post on this). Additionally, the perceived pockmark near her mouth was, in fact, a piercing.
In response to this, some people mocked Hu Xijin for how he responded to the controversy.

Photoshop meme mocking Hu Xijin.
But Liu’s video also turns out to be a bit different than the version of the story he presented.
The actor seemed to voice a popular public sentiment by taking a stand against Apple’s dominant position, that rivals that of China’s tech darling Huawei, by smashing an Apple smartphone in public.
But where is the proof that Liu actually bought his iPhone at an Apple store in 2022? Where is the receipt showing that his phone was indeed not coming from a third party that might have modified it?
To the dismay of many netizens, the actor refused to show the official store receipt of his Apple phone, and many people started to doubt if the actor might have just put on a show to gain attention at a critical moment in the market competition between Apple and Huawei.
Moreover, the actor’s story seemed even less credible when he tried to further explain it in a recent social media post.
Why?
As many netizens noted: the post he sent was actually sent from an iPhone.
By Manya Koetse
1 “(..)一些国人在西方人“辱华”的问题上很敏感,有其真实的历史和文化原因。目前中美关系很紧张,中西关系也不如过去,美国和西方公司在做产品宣传时,多一些细心、谨慎,尽量不要选用有可能引发中国人误解的图文,这是他们开展跨文化交流时一份应有的素养和水平。”
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