News

Kwalee opens a new studio in China

This move continues the impressive expansion Kwalee has seen over the last year. The main aim is to anchor in the most lucrative mobile market in the world.

Mobile game publisher Kwalee announces the opening of a new office in Beijing, China, led by a new head of business development Penny Qian. Qian joined Kwalee in July, and previously was the head of business development at AppLovin, and has also spent time at AppLift and Tencent.

The decision to open an office here isn’t just down to the size of the market and the amount of players though, as this also goes hand in hand with a vast amount of talent in China. We’ve been growing the publishing side of our business since mid-2019, and have since worked with developers from all over the world, including Russia, India and Brazil. Creating this team in China will enable us to work with more of the many great devs here, and bring their games to a worldwide audience.

Jason Falcus, COO at Kwalee

The Chinese mobile market is expected to generate nearly $64 billion this year, which is nearly half of the estimated $159 billion the overall games business is predicted to bring in, and with this new office, Kwalee hopes to grow its “brand and games presence” in the region, with focusing on business development, marketing and third-party publishing.

Jason Falcus, COO at Kwalee, states it’s not just the money that leads Kwalee to China, but the development talent presents there as well.

China is the biggest mobile gaming market in the world, and while we have been able to grow at a great rate to this point, the China office presents an opportunity to become even more of an international brand and it was clear it was the next step we needed to make.

David Darling, CEO at Kwalee

Now the publisher will be looking to hire five to ten employees within the next year to create a team. In May, Kwalee has already opened a new office in Bangalore, India, in addition to its UK headquarters in Leamington Spa, which employs over 80 people. And in June it partnered with design tools provider Buildbox to grow the hyper-casual market. Kwalee’s latest successes include such titles as Line Up: Draw the Criminal, Bake it and OverTake, which have been downloaded over 40 million times.

Don’t forget to share this post