NetEase | BIC

Posts tagged as: NetEase back to homepage
NetEase Second-Quarter Profit Rises 3.8%(0)Net income increased to 485.7 million yuan ($71.6 million) from 468.1 million yuan a year earlier. Sales rose 54 percent to 1.35 billion yuan.
NetEase offered new games such as ?Heroes of Tang Dynasty? last quarter to meet rising competition from Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Shanda Games Ltd. in China?s $4 billion online-games market. The Beijing-based company won regulatory approval this month to offer an upgrade to its ?World of Warcraft? game, which may boost subscribers to the title by a third next year, according to UBS AG estimates. The upgrade will help NetEase win users of rival games, including Shanda?s ?Aion,? UBS?s Gary Ngan wrote in a report last month.
Revenue from online games advanced 51 percent to 1.18 billion yuan in the quarter, NetEase said. Sales from online advertising doubled, reaching 145.9 million yuan.?World of Warcraft,? a multiplayer, role-playing game developed by Activision Blizzard Inc., accounted for about 30 percent of NetEase?s sales in the first quarter, according to estimates from IResearch.
Source : Konaxis
Netease IM(0)NetEase forced the staff to use Enterprise IM which means that Netease’s intention to enter Enterprise IM Tool is gradually clear.
On May 28th, Netease IM tools-POPO launched Enterprise Edition; NetEase POPO in-house staff is starting to bind original account with the Enterprise account. NetEase provides in-house binding of corp account and the original POPO account and transfer of contact list.
Yesterday, stafff found enterprise net did not support common popo login, instead a corporate mail account was required to log, which also means since June 24, staff can only use enterprise version POPO. Enterprise POPO can only be used for internal communication, which creates inconvenience for the jobs that needs connection with outside.
IResearch Consulting announced early in January of the ranking of instant messaging software, in which Netease POPO has dropped out of the top 10 in market. Netease POPO has limited market-share and has not found a suitable model, therefore, turning to enterprise market become strategic.
NetEase May Buy Companies(0)?If an acquisition can help the development of our search business, then why not go for it,? NetEase Chief Executive Officer William Ding said on a conference call Thursday.
NetEase?s Youdao search service now accounts for 0.4 percent of the local search-engine market, according to researcher Analysys International.
NetEase, trailing Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Shanda Games Ltd. in China?s $3.95 billion online games market, Wednesday reported first-quarter profit rose 8.5 percent to 452.3 million yuan ($66.2 million), from 416.7 million yuan a year earlier.
Revenue from online games rose 50 percent to 1.09 billion yuan in the quarter, NetEase said. Sales of online advertising more than doubled to 91.5 million yuan.
Profitability declined last quarter as NetEase incurred higher marketing expenses and royalty fees for its ?World of Warcraft? role-playing game, licensed from Activision Blizzard Inc. Gross profit margin for the online games division narrowed to 72.1 percent in the first quarter, declining from 90 percent a year earlier.
NetEase may consider a share buyback if the price is right, Ding said Thursday. The company?s cash holdings increased to 7.7 billion yuan at the end of March, compared with 7 billion yuan three months earlier, it said.
Source : Konaxis
NetEase Microsoft MSN(0)Microsoft formed a joint venture with Shanghai Alliance Investment in 2005 to introduce MSN, an instant messaging platform and internet portal, to the mainland. But MSN has struggled to gain traction with Chinese users and compete effectively with homegrown titan Tencent Holdings? QQ platform.
Sohu IT news reported late yesterday, quoting investment community sources, that Shanghai Alliance had been looking to exit the joint venture since 2007 and that Microsoft was shopping around for new joint venture partners.
Microsoft and NetEase were close to completing a joint venture deal, sources told Sohu.
Source : Konaxis
NetEase suspends new user(0)New user registrations would be halted for a week from Monday in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday, the company said in a statement posted on its WoW China website, www.warcraftchina.com on Sunday.
“We recently submitted our application to operate World of Warcraft (The Burning Crusade) to the General Administration of Press and Publication for review,” the company said.
Since last November, NetEase has been caught in the crossfire of an inter-government feud over regulation of the online game space.
The tussle resulted in China’s General Administration of Press and Publication returning NetEase’s application to operate the WoW expansion pack, ordering the company to stop charging users to play the game and disallowing new account registrations citing “gross violations” of regulations. But NetEase continued to operate the game as usual saying it was in compliance with local laws.
Uncertainty over the operation of the hit title, caused investors to sell NetEase shares, which fell more than 30 percent from a record high of $48.50 achieved in September last year.
Source : Konaxis
Rumors said that Netease did not give out bonuses for several months because of Warcraft gaming(0)According to the sources, during “World of Warcraft” free service openning, Netease has a cost of million yuan everyday. In accordance with the provisions of Netease, these whole costs are undertaken by the entire gaming department, and this also caused the Netease not able to pay bonuses on time.　　According to the same sources, the suspended bonuses raised some staff discontent, after all, most self-developed products of Netease have good performance.
At present, the NetEase has not confirmed the message, relevant person said that NetEase’s game division was very large, not just a few products, the withholding of bonuses was unlikely.
World of Warcraft China free testing while awaiting approval(0)‘We had been notified by Shanghai Netease and discussed with them before the announcement. It’s a thoughtful decision,’ said Yu, a public relations officer with Blizzard Entertainment Inc, the developer of the game.
In April, the game’s operating right in China was transferred from The9, another onlione game operator, to Shanghai Netease . The two companies concluded their agreement in early June and the game resumed its services July 30 with an open testing programme.
However, The9?s operations approval for the game was not transferable to the new operator. The government requires the new online game operators to reapply for approval. After Shanghai Netease gets the final nod to re-launch its commercial operation, players will be charged about 0.5 yuan per hour through prepaid cards.
Many players in China have complained that the strict censorship on the game is the reaon why it takes too long for the game to reopen.
The game was reported to have about four million subscribers or active players in China, accounting for 30 percent of the total in the world.
China?s online gaming industry was estimated to be worth $2.70 billion, with about 49.36 million online gamers last year.
Source : Konaxis
Online games had 63% growth in China(0)The growth figure show that global economic chaos didi not negatively affect the Chinese online game market in 2008.
The firm projected that the market will grow to $5.5 billion in 2012.
The Pearl report said that the Chinese game operators are optimistic about the years ahead, saying the global economic downturn has had little impact on their businesses, as games are “small-ticket” items that people are still willing to buy.
The most popular online game in China is Netease’s Fantasy Westward Journey, which reached over 1.8 million peak concurrent users. Following that title is Giant?s Zhengtu Online (1.5 million users), Tencent’s Dungeon Fighter (1.2 million) and Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (1 million).
Pearl also said there are six game operators in China that have crossed the $200 million revenue mark: Tencent, Changyou, The9, Netease, Shanda and Giant.
About 70 percent of China’s 298 million Internet users are under 30 years old, Pearl said.
Pearl’s Allison Luong elaborated on the study. ?Trends to track in 2009 include the growth of social networking sites in China, with over 55 million users, and their cross-pollination with games.
“One overall concern is the lack of diversification with many game operators relying on a single title for the bulk of revenues.
“In addition, a glut of content with more than 200 games on the market, makes releasing a breakout hit increasingly difficult.?
Source : Konaxis
Netease To Offer Free Computer Game, Won’t Develop New Games In 2008(0)The game to be launched is Tian Xia Er, which did not achieve as good success for Netease as its Da Hua Xi You or Meng Huan Xi You games. Ding spoke to local media and said that the game was not successful on the market mainly because they ignored the difference in China’s 40 million game players and emphasized too much on its time-based charging. Ding said that with the change of the market, Netease will launch the game as a free game to players.
Speaking of its social responsibility, Ding said that being ‘green’ is a standard that Netease has been adhering to as a game developer and the company will continue to follow this route to wrap China’s traditional cultural value into their game products.
Ding disclosed that Netease would not focus on developing games of its own in 2008. Instead, he said that it would co-develop some games with its partners to bring better experience to gamers in China.
Source : Chinatechnews
Netease Begins Constructing R&D Center In Hangzhou(0)Netease’s R&D Center in Hangzhou will mainly focus on the development of such Internet technologies as computer games and blogging services as well as the operation of new products. Ding Lei, CEO of Netease, says that Netease will form a development team of 3000-4000 people in the coming three to five years and this will make the Hangzhou R&D Center the largest one for the company.
In June 2007, Netease set up a network company and a research institute in Hangzhou.
Source : Chinatechnews
« Previous12Next »Online Entertainment
Trends in the Chinese Online Education IndustryComments Off3 great strategies on the Social Medias in ChinaComments OffChina’s new phoenomen: get Smartphones at all costsComments OffTencent Buys Google Social Networking(0)read more