(Yicai) March 28 -- Wuhan has launched China’s first incubation base for mini-games, attracting more than 70 gaming companies, including a unit of Tencent Holdings.

During the opening ceremony, Tencent Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and a local arm of Douyin Group, the Chinese affiliate of TikTok, signed agreements to establish operations at the base, Yicai learned. Additionally, the Wuhan Digital Creative and Game Industry Association has moved to the facility, committing to drive industry standardization and resource integration.

Mini-games have become increasingly popular in China due to their accessibility via mobile applications such as WeChat, Douyin, and Alipay, without requiring separate downloads.

The entire market is growing. China’s gaming market revenue reached a record CNY325.8 billion (USD43.4 billion) last year, a year-on-year increase of 8 percent, according to an industry report.

The domestic mini-game market generated CNY39.8 billion (USD5.3 billion) in 2024, nearly doubling in size, according to Xiong Shuo, an expert at the China Game Industry Think Tank.

These bite-sized games are also gaining popularity abroad, particularly in Japan and South Korea, Xiong said, adding that a group of 17 Chinese mini-games earned over USD470 million internationally in the first half of last year.

Editor: Emmi Laine