Scorching rise of Asian giant’s MMORPG on an international platform
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – June 9, 2015 – NetEase, Inc. (NTES), a leading online gaming and Internet technology company in China, today announced that its self-developed mobile game, Fantasy Westward Journey, is the 4th highest-grossing mobile game in the world, according to App Annie. Fantasy Westward Journey’s success is the result of NetEase leveraging its strong domestic franchises to compete spectacularly on a global level.
The Fantasy Westward Journey mobile game was launched on March 25, 2015, and since then has dominated the #1 spot in the China iOS app store’s top grossing chart. The company moreover announced last month that the game had achieved over 2 million peak concurrent users. The spectacular popularity of Fantasy Westward Journey is the culmination of NetEase’s successful efforts in the rapidly growing mobile gaming market, having followed the releases of multiple popular top-quality titles from 2013.
Fantasy Westward Journey began as an immensely popular PC game that has been growing steadily in revenues for over a decade. The successful expansion of the franchise from PC to mobile platforms, and from China to the world, is indicative of the rising power of Chinese brands in the global market.
Now NetEase is casting their sights abroad, having already achieved great results with international partnerships. At the end of 2013, following years of successful partnership with Blizzard Entertainment (with World of Warcraft®, StarCraft®II,Heroes of the Storm™ and Diablo III®: Reaper of Souls™ as licensed titles) NetEase successfully obtained the license for Hearthstone™: Heroes of Warcraft™, Blizzard Entertainment’s free-to-play online strategy card game, while in March 2015 the company successfully licensed Facebook’s Game of the Year, Cookie Jam, and F1 Race Stars. NetEase recently announced its expansion into the Western market with the establishment of a new US office dedicated to bringing games culturalized for consumers outside of China.
NetEase recently released financial reports for the first quarter of 2015 showing revenue increase of 54.2% year-over-year.
In 2015, NetEase is continuing to draw attention to the strength of Chinese companies, and assisting overseas companies to access the huge potential of the 1.3 billion-strong Chinese market.
About Netease
NetEase, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTES) is a leading Internet technology and video game company headquartered in China. With a breadth of experience in content creation and sharing, NetEase develops and operates some of China’s most popular online games (including World of Warcraft®, Hearthstone®: Heroes of Warcraft™, StarCraft®II, Heroes of the Storm™ and Diablo®III), e-mail services, advertising services, mobile applications and games, and web portals. The company has recently established a US office, with plans to expand their offerings by releasing mobile games for Western audiences. For more information, please visit: http://ir.netease.com/
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