Beyond China and the U.S.: Finding the next gaming growth market

Do you know which markets you should go after, once you’ve already launched your mobile game in the U.S. and China? The answer may lay south.

Beth Kindig, the senior manager of developer relations at the global mobile ad network Vserv.mobi, has a good idea based on data from hundreds of millions of mobile games. At our GamesBeat University track at GamesBeat 2014, she talked about the rate of growth in game markets such as Japan, Brazil, India, Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia.

In relation to China, India has lots of downloads and users. But it’s lacking in revenue, coming in at No. 21 worldwide with $100 million in revenue. Still, it’s worth thinking about, as it will hit sales of 213 million in smartphone sales in 2014 alone. But India is only starting to get operator billing. Before China had operator billing, it also was a $100 million market. Now it’s a $2.9 billion market, according to market researchers Niko Partners.

“Each of these elements are like a tectonic plate,” Kindig said. “If you can crack this problem, you can create this huge shift.”

Kindig has suggestions about how to deal with mobile payments in places like Brazil.

Kindig just moved on to a new position at Vungle. Here’s Kindig’s full presentation in video at GamesBeat University, our track for gaming tips and tricks at GamesBeat 2014.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjl_JFHHXA0&w=560&h=315]

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.