Taiwan and Hong Kong: promising markets with huge opportunities

At Alconost, we continue to translate the advice of experienced consultant Josh Barnes to enter Asian markets. We have already published his findings on South Korea and Japan . Today we will talk about two very promising markets.

If you want to take advantage of the potential of the growing Asian markets and localize a mobile game for this, you should probably consider Taiwan and Hong Kong. Despite the smaller population, these are large markets (in Taiwan alone , mobile games earned $ 400 million in 2015 ) with a high prevalence of smartphones ( 73.4% in Taiwan , 69.8% in Hong Kong ). A good and average annual income from games per user: in Taiwan it is $ 116.60 , the Hong Kong market is not much inferior . According to Carsten Lammert, who is engaged in attracting customers at Gamania , there are much more users in the Taiwan market, but in Hong Kong they are easier to retain, therefore, the average revenue per user is 1.5–2 times higher. This suggests that in each of these cases a separate marketing strategy should be developed.
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Let's discuss what else you need to know about these markets.

Compared with mainland China, the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets will have fewer difficulties.

There are several hundred app stores in mainland China, and this can make it much more difficult to spread the game. But in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the main distribution channels are Google and Apple stores, so it will be no more difficult to distribute games than in the United States. At the same time, there are many different payment methods used for in-app purchases, for example, local prepaid cards that are not yet well supported by Apple and Google stores. In addition, there are far fewer legal barriers to the spread of certain types of games: outside of mainland China, social casino games can be easily promoted. And in these markets, in some sense, it’s easier to get to users: in Taiwan, for example, Wi-Fi works everywhere - on smartphones you can play literally everywhere.


In addition, most of Taiwan’s economy is technology based, so people there are technologically savvy and are constantly looking for the newest and the best.

Historically, it is well perceived global trends, especially in Hong Kong

In particular, the games targeted at the international market (coming from North America and Europe) are quite successful in Hong Kong : Clash Royale and Candy Crush recently occupy rather high positions. Clash of Clans and Hearthstone showed themselves well. Difficult games are also popular among Hong Kong players: real-time strategies with social functions are pretty successful in Hong Kong, according to Carsten. As for Taiwan, there is a strong influence of computer games, so preference is given to other traditional game genres, such as RPGs and strategies. At the same time, generally speaking, games from China and Japan seem more attractive to players than Western ones. And, interestingly, in many cases, the game model is built in such a way that it is very difficult to win without paying anything.

Hong Kong and Taiwanese markets differ from each other, but often it is better to enter them as part of a regional campaign that includes China. It is also important to find a partner.

Hong Kong and Taiwan are interesting markets with great opportunities. As a rule, working with a partner here (in fact, the most sensible approach to localization) is part of an overall strategy for working in China. Some publishers generally focus exclusively on importing games to Taiwan and Hong Kong. Arthur Chow, CEO of 6waves , believes that working with a local partner can give the game a significant advantage: a good partner can take the initial job of localization, local marketing and operational development of the game, which will increase the chances of successful opposition to local competitors. When working with a partner, as well as when doing business in China in general, one can understand who is best suited in terms of opportunities, vision and interest, only by doing the actual work and communicating with the partner.

If you publish on your own, rely on the best practices of the region.

However, you can independently publish only in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In this case, you should focus on high-quality localization of materials for the game and the application store, and you need to use traditional Chinese writing (in mainland China - simplified Chinese). Here, as in many Asian countries, it is quite common to promote mobile games personally and offline, for example, in stores, at various events and with the help of outdoor advertising. As Arthur noted, outdoor advertising is especially important, since Taipei and Hong Kong are among the most densely populated cities in the world. “Off-line mobile gaming ads tend to impress users,” he says. “It makes you think that the game is better, so players will be more willing to give it their time and their money.”


Advertise the mobile game Dot Arena in the Hong Kong region, which is noted in the Guinness Book of Records as the most populous region of the world

I advise you to wait and see if there is good statistics on users on organic traffic before starting a large-scale offline marketing campaign.

It is also necessary to remember about the importance of using the LINE messenger in marketing. In addition, according to Arthur, in this region, players expect various activities to be held both within the game (as part of the operational development of the game - “live ops”) and for the community - this is, in fact, the key to retaining users and monetizing the game. .

Taiwan and Hong Kong, compared to mainland China, are relatively small markets, but for some reasons, western developers find it easier to penetrate. Localization here can be quite simple, and maybe part of a more extensive strategy to reach mainland China. Both markets are well developed, players here appreciate challenging games, including those whose homeland is not the Asia-Pacific region. If you want to do localization in these markets, do an independent research and determine which genres of games in which markets are going well, look for partners to distribute the game, and if you decide to publish yourself, bring the game to the required level based on best practices in the region.


About the translator

The article is translated in Alconost.

Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 68 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources, translation of technical texts .

We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.

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