Far EasTone Telecommunications Co., Taiwan’s third-largest wireless carrier, teamed up with more than 10 game Publishers to seek a further push into the fast-growing mobile game market. The partnership is expected to add 3,000 mobile games to Far EasTone’s “friDay APP Assistant” app store in June, with the aim of offering 10,000 mobile games by the end of this year, said Charlene Hung, executive Vice President of Internet and commerce at Far EasTone.
The friDay APP Assistant has been downloaded by 500,000 users since its launch in November last year, and Far EasTone is targeting 1 million downloads of the platform by year-end thanks to the company’s new partnership with game publishers in Taiwan, China and Japan, Hung told a press conference. She said the friDay platform currently has over 3,000 apps of all kinds and has accumulated 650,000 downloads, with gaming apps making up 40 percent of the total downloads and 96 percent of the platform’s overall revenue. With 74 percent of friDay’s registered members paying for apps using their telecom bills, Hung said she believes that a wider availability of mobile games will help boost Far EasTone’s cash flow.
Hung cited industry statistics as saying that Taiwan’s mobile game market was estimated at NT$11 billion (US$360 million) in 2014 and will continue to grow significantly this year. Taiwan is also one of the top five markets of Google Inc.’s Google Play app store by revenue, helped by the increasing popularity of smartphones, which in turn has led to strong demand for mobile games, according to Google.
Source: http://focustaiwan.tw
