China Information Technology 2 August 2016 China Internet Sector ChinaJoy wrap: online games, long may they reign Positive outlook on mobile game revenue growth unchanged; expect recent regulation to accelerate mobile game industry consolidation Tencent and NetEase already dominate respective mobile hard-core John Choi genres in China; both have strong mobile game pipelines in 2H16 (852) 2773 8730 Top picks in the China Internet sector: Alibaba and Tencent
[email protected] Alex Liu (852) 2848 4976
[email protected] What's new: We attended ChinaJoy, Asia’s largest digital entertainment fair and World Mobile Game Conference (WMGC), in Shanghai on 29-31 July. We are more optimistic on large online game players including Tencent (700 HK, HKD184.50, Buy [1]) and NetEase (NTES US, USD202.71, Outperform [2]) after the event. We expect both to meet, if not beat, our and the consensus mobile game revenue growth forecasts in their upcoming 2Q16 results. What's the impact: Big players getting bigger. We expect mobile game market consolidation to continue, ultimately benefiting the large players like Tencent and NetEase. Specifically, Tencent plans to launch fewer mobile game titles but with a higher quality to cover the majority of China’s mobile game population. Its leadership in the mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), casual, and first person shooter (FPS) genres is largely intact, in our view. Separately, we believe NetEase is in a league of its own in terms of the mobile role playing game (RPG) genre in China, and is ready to expand into new genres including Dance and Card & Action.