Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group announced a strategic partnership with Japanese game developer Hit-Point, granting Alibaba exclusive rights to publish the mobile game Travel Frog in the Chinese mainland.
From its release in December to March this year, the game was downloaded more than 16 million times by Chinese iPhone users.
"The partnership will help Alibaba further tap into the gaming sector," a Beijing-based independent gaming analyst said.
A report by the Game Publishers Association Publications Committee, Gamma Data Corp and the International Data Corporation shows that revenue of the gaming market grew by 23 percent year-on-year to 203.6 billion yuan ($32.4 billion) in China in 2017, with more than 60 percent contributed by Tencent and NetEase Inc.
