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China Games Hardware and Infrastructure

  • Report

  • October 2020
  • Region: China
  • Niko Partners, Inc.
  • ID: 5187132

5G Smartphones Account for More than 60% of Smartphones Shipped During July 2020, up from 26% in January 2020

What you’ll learn from this report:

Understanding the hardware that gamers will use to access and play games, and the internet infrastructure available to gamers and game operators is critical for success in China.

Rankings and revenue are only part of the story. To really understand a market you need to understand gamers and their behavior, the regulations that govern the market, and the available infrastructure and hardware on which gaming depends.

This report delivers a detailed look at the internet infrastructure, hardware, devices, and components that enable gaming in China, how the landscape is changing and what this means for developers, publishers, hardware companies, service providers, investors, and others looking to understand the direction of the industry.

What’s included:

The addressable market, hardware usage, and consumer demand for hardware and infrastructure including ownership, usage, and purchase intent, and purchase decision influences for PC, console, mobile device, GPU/CPU, and accessories; trends, connectivity, and bandwidth available to gamers, the impact of 5G, and more:


  • Internet infrastructure
  • Home broadband penetration
  • Population, smartphone users, internet users
  • China’s big 3 telecom providers
  • China’s newest telecom provider
  • China cuts junkware as IP addresses continue to rise
  • China has the largest number of FTTH/O internet users in the world
  • How gamers choose an internet operator
  • Cost and download speed of fixed internet service
  • Mobile internet infrastructure
  • Performance of the big 3 providers as 5G ramps up
  • Game distribution platforms of the big 3 providers
  • Number of mobile users by year
  • Mobile data usage
  • Mobile data cost
  • 5G in China
  • 5G capable smartphones and total smartphones shipped
  • China’s 5G ecosystem
  • 5G coverage by province
  • Cloud gaming in China
  • Asia’s cloud gaming ecosystem
  • Cloud gaming revenue in China
  • Gamer attitudes on cloud gaming
  • Internet cafes
  • Internet cafe market size in China
  • Leading icafe brands
  • Icafe usage and demographics
  • Gamer time spent in icafes
  • Icafe activities
  • Why gamers visit icafes
  • Critical hardware for gamers
  • Icafe CPU and memory
  • New offline experiences
  • PC hardware
  • PC gamers market model & ARPPU
  • Time spent on PC, mobile, and console games
  • PC configurations required for popular games
  • PC and gaming notebook brand rankings
  • Keyboard brand rankings
  • Mouse brand rankings
  • Headset use and brand rankings
  • Mobile hardware
  • Mobile gamers market model & ARPPU
  • Mobile games revenue by game ranking
  • Value chain of a mobile game
  • iOS and Android smartphones
  • iOS and Android gamers by city tier
  • Activated smartphone distribution by gender, age, and city tier
  • Smartphone market share
  • Active smartphone brand distribution
  • Gaming smartphones and specs
  • Console hardware
  • Consoles in China
  • Total console hardware units
  • Sony PlayStation in China
  • Shipments of Sony PlayStation units
  • Microsoft Xbox in China
  • Shipments of Microsoft Xbox units
  • Nintendo in China
  • Shipments of Nintendo Switch units
  • Hardware and device ownership
  • Hardware and device plan to purchase
  • Branded PC and gaming notebook ownership
  • Hardware and device recency of purchase
  • Hardware and device purchase considerations
  • Hardware and device purchase decision influences
  • Top smartphone brands for gaming
  • Gamer technical product knowledge
  • Console brand ownership
  • Console brand preference and plan to purchase
  • Console purchase decision influences
  • Reason for console purchase decision

Key takeaways from the analysis:


  • 88% of gamers in China consider gaming when they purchase a new PC.
  • 5G smartphones account for more than 60% of smartphones shipped during July 2020, up from 26% in January 2020.
  • Internet cafes are on the decline due in part to the impact from COVID-19 which led to the closure of multiple sites in 2020.
  • Console gaming revenue is set to reach $2.15 billion in 2024. Sony remains the market leader, but the Nintendo Switch is quickly losing ground.
  • Gamers in China are tech-savvy and tend to research hardware on their own with input from friends, forums, and influencers for hardware information, rather than relying on advertising or salespeople.
  • There are more than 417 million broadband users with a fiber to the home/office (FTTH) connection, up 10x from 2013.

Companies Mentioned

  • Microsoft
  • Nintendo
  • Sony