YuuZoo forms e-sport joint venture in China

YUUZOO Corporation has formed a new e-sport joint venture in China which would bring the mobile social e-commerce company at least five million active paying users and 1.5 million yuan (S$325,000) in the first 12 months of operations.

YuuGames, the new joint venture with e-sport events and gaming activity provider and organiser XG AMA, will be located within YuuZoo's virtual shopping mall, and will target over 146,000 internet gaming bars in China which has 120 million game players.

XG AMA already has existing agreements with 3,000 of these bars, most of which have thousands of members, said YuuZoo in its press release on Thursday morning.

YuuGames will have a mobile app that aims to convert these offline customers into online ones, by allowing users to find the location of the bars, reserve seats and arrange matches between e-sport teams. Other functions such as shopping, mobile games broadcast and game events will also be available on the app.

Gaming is one of YuuZoo's three strategic pillars, said its chairman and CEO Thomas Zilliascus. According to YuuZoo, the online gaming market was worth 82.1 billion yuan at the end of 2013, and will grow to 131 billion yuan by the end of this year, of which mobile gaming will account for 33.8 billion yuan.

"We are very excited about the new joint venture with one of China's leading entrepreneurs in the internet gaming bar space," said Mr Zilliacus. "YuuZoo's business in China is growing very rapidly ... YuuGames will increase the attractiveness even more, and contribute to revenue and monthly active user growth in the world's largest market."