The Chinese TapTap mobile store has global plans. He wants to compete with Google Play
The largest Chinese mobile store TapTap decided to go beyond the Celestial Empire and grab a part of the Google Play audience. Games such as Genshin Impact and Sausage Man should help him in this, as well as zero commission for developers.
According to the Bloomberg business portal, the X.D. Network company that owns the store has enlisted the support of technology giants ByteDance and Alibaba.
“We will try to convince developers that Android games can be distributed not only through Google Play. There are other channels where they can receive 100% of revenue,” said Dash Huang, founder of X.D. Network. — “TapTap has no serious competitors in the global market.”
The owners of TapTap suggested that by the end of 2021, the Western audience of the store should be equal in size to the Chinese one. The company wants to achieve this with the help of the hit Genshin Impact and its own indie titles like Sausage Man. The latter recently collected 6 million downloads, a third of which came from abroad.
But TapTap made the main bet on the lack of commission for developers. Unlike Google Play and the App Store, this store earns on advertising, not on deductions. Moreover, this practice is not the norm for China, since Huawei and Tencent stores charge developers a commission of 50%.
Nevertheless, TapTap’s business in the domestic market is not going too smoothly. In August, shares of X.D. Network fell by 60% compared to the February peak — from 110 to 40 Hong Kong dollars per piece (from $14 to $5). Investors were concerned about the advertising monetization of the store.
X.D. Network’s revenue also declined. In the first half of the year, the company earned $213 million. This is 4.3% less than in the first half of last year. It also failed to make a profit, and X.D. Network’s net losses amounted to $50 million. The company attributed this to the increase in marketing and game development costs.
TapTap is currently used by 28.7 million Chinese gamers. Its foreign audience (residents of Southeast Asia can download the store via Steam) reached 13.2 million people.
