Shanda seeks to tap social network
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Shanda Games, whose net profit fell nearly 15 percent in the first quarter, plans to expand in the social network and mobile sectors to boost revenue.
Shanda is seeking acquisition opportunities in the social sectors in the United States and Asia, Reuters reported yesterday citing Alan Tan, Shanda Games' chief executive.
Shanda aims to better integrate new social services like miniblog or Weibo and expand in the mobile Internet market, Tan said.
In the first three months, Shanda Games' net profit was 313 million yuan (US$47.4 million), a 14.6 percent decline from a year ago. Its revenue was 1.25 billion yuan, an annual 8.7 percent hike.
Shanda Games also hopes to garner more than 20 percent of its revenue from international markets in two to three years, up from 5.4 percent now.
The firm, which used to lead China's online games market, has lost market share to top game firms Tencent Holdings and NetEase.com Inc, industry insiders said.
Shanda Games, spun off from Shanda Interactive in 2009, plans to launch more than 10 self-developed social or mobile games and six to seven more advanced games this year, according to Tan.
China's game industry's revenue surged 30 percent in 2010, down from over 50 percent annually in past years, industry insiders said.
E-commerce replaced online games as the most popular sector for investment in the domestic market last year as the business-to-consumer sector boomed, said Zero2IPO. In 2010, B2C investment gained US$714 million, compared to US$137 million for online games.
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