Seasons greetings

Ren Gang, CEO of Haypi Co Ltd, launched a new game in the App Store in early December to grab business opportunities amid the Christmas shopping frenzy. [Provided to China Daily]

Game developer makes strategic play for more revenue by releasing apps during the holidays

Ren Gang, 40, has been waiting all year for Christmas. But he isn't worried about what gifts to buy for his family or what is on his friends' wishlists, he's staying up nights worrying about the release of his new games on the App Store, the open platform for Apple Inc.

Ren is CEO of Haypi Co Ltd, an innovative Shanghai-based developer of entertainment software. His Haypi series is one of the most popular apps in the App Store. He says each month, the Haypi series makes approximately $700,000 (536,970 euros) in revenue.

His two new babies are: Haypi Dragon, a multiplayer strategy game that was released on Dec 9; and Haypi Store, which is still in beta testing and is a simulation game in which you are in charge of a store. The company's most successful game is Haypi Kingdom, which has been downloaded more than 10 million times and is a massive multiplayer strategy game set in the Middle Ages.

According to App Store Rewind 2011, which lists the best iPhone apps and games in the United States, Haypi Kingdom ranks eighth on the list of top grossing games.

To Ren and to a throng of Chinese app developers, Christmas is an important business opportunity that can't be missed. Ren says revenue from his Haypi series on Christmas last year spiked to seven or eight times his normal monthly intake to about $160,000 to $180,000.

According to developers in China who spoke with China Daily, there are more than 120,000 developers in the nation. Many, they say, are beginning to compete against each other and with developers from other countries not just over the spoils of Christmas, but for what they believe is an untapped Chinese market.

"Apple does not promote your apps on normal days," says Sun Peilin, an analyst with Analysys International, a Beijing-based consultancy firm. "But during the holidays, Apple highlights some holiday-themed apps. This is a great chance for Chinese developers since the majority of them are still struggling to get the word out (about their apps)."

Apple has undoubtedly transformed the handheld mobile device industry, but it has also created a buying frenzy in China for the popular iPhone and iPad. As purchases of the devices increase, so have the purchases of apps.

Apple's sales to China from September 2010 to September 2011 increased six times over the prior year, to $8.8 billion, according to the Motley Fool, a financial-services company based in the US.

Hendrik Koekkoek, analyst with Distimo, an independent consulting group based in the Netherlands that does research on the App Store, says iPhone app downloads in China increased by more than 30 percent the month after Dec 24, 2010, compared to the previous month.

With a growing market for apps in China and a very developed market overseas, Chinese developers are just looking to step into the Chinese market after spending most of their efforts toward overseas consumers. Their first targets - Christmas shoppers.