English

By Xie Fang

China's e-sports market is expected to exceed RMB 88 billion in 2018 and increase by another RMB 35 billion during the next two years, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report was written by the domestic data-analysis company, CNG, which was entrusted by the Shanghai Municipal Press and Publication Bureau to release the report.

The report says that China's e-sports industry is growing rapidly with the number of domestic e-sports players projected to reach 430 million this year. What's more, the number of Chinese e-sports users has been maintaining an annual growth rate of more than 20 percent over the past three years.

The report attributes the robust development of China's e-sports market to the growth in the number of e-sports events held in China. More than 500 events were held in China last year, according to the report.

The report also points out that there is still plenty of room for China's e-sports event market to grow as the market is estimated to reach RMB 1.06 billion in 2018, accounting for merely 1.2 percent of the overall domestic e-sports market.

Wang Xu, founder and chief analyst, noted that so far, the audience watching top-level e-sports events has outnumbered the audience watching traditional sport events like the NBA Finals via various domestic live-streaming platforms.

He believed that as the commercialization of e-sports events speeds up, China's e-sports event market will exceed RMB 10 billion in the near future.