Game recording service Kamcord 'investing heavily' as China's mobile gaming market overtakes US

Fast-growing start-up Kamcord, backed by international and Chinese internet giants including Tencent and Google Ventures, will invest heavily in China as the mainland sets to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market, said a top executive at the company.

The San Francisco-based mobile game recording and sharing start-up is one of the world’s most popular online communities for mobile game players. It plans to set up an office in mainland China to tap gamers’ fast and growing shift from the PC to mobile devices.

“We are investing heavily in China in 2015, along with Japan and Korea. These three countries make up 50 per cent of mobile gaming revenue,” Richard Hu, who leads the firm’s global expansion, told the South China Morning Post in a recent interview.

Kamcord plans to open a new position of country manager for mainland China and build a team around the person to strengthen the company's presence there and also help deal with the quirks that make China such a unique market: Android app store fragmentation and the proliferation of lower-end Android devices.

“From our experience of entering Japan and South Korea, we’ve found that you really need a local team on the ground building relationships in order to drive adoption,” he said. The firm already has offices in Tokyo and Seoul.