China becomes the highest-grossing e-sports market in the world

The past few years have witnessed the booming development of China's e-sports market. In 2021, the total revenue of China's e-sports activities exceeded $360 million, up 14 percent from $315 million in 2020, surpassing that of North America and Western Europe, making China the world's highest-grossing e-sports market.

(Photo/Xinhua)

According to a recent report, the number of e-sports audiences across the world in 2021 stands at 474 million, of which 234 million are core e-sports enthusiasts and 240 million are occasional non-core audiences. Among them, 92.8 million are core e-sports enthusiasts in China, of which 39 percent are female.

More than 80 percent of China's provincial capital cities have launched various e-sports activities. Incomplete statistics indicated that a total of 26 provincial-level administrative regions across the country made it clear that they would support e-sports industry or introduce relevant supportive policies.

E-sports industrial clusters have been formed in various regions, as the investment in e-sports enterprises and teams are conducive to the promotion of the economic and cultural development in these cities.

Inspired by the fast growth of this industry, e-sports themed hotels have sprung up like mushrooms in recent years. With the price for a single room in a themed hotel being 10-30 percent higher than that of an ordinary one, statistics show that at the beginning of 2020, the number of e-sports hotels in China was less than 1,400, whereas by the end of November 2020, the number well exceeded 10,000.

"The majority of customers in e-sports hotels are young people and the locals, whose loyalty and repurchase rate are far higher than those of business travelers, which is one of the reasons why e-sports hotels can recover so rapidly following the outbreak of the epidemic," said Xu Peng, CEO of Kunpeng Golden Wings, a leading marketing company.