Taiwan's online games market second to Korea in Asia

Taipei, May 20, 2003 (CENS)--The online games market in Taiwan registered a sharp growth rate of 83% last year to expand the share on the Asia-Pacific market to 26%, second only to that of South Korea.

The latest research on the online games market by IDC shows that the scale of the market in the Asia-Pacific region grew to US$530 million last year. Games with Korean- and Chinese-language contents still dominate the market. More Taiwan software firms have poured greater resources to develop new products to prevent infringements on their intellectual property rights affiliated with stand-alone games machines.

South Korea maintained the leadership with a dominant 54% market share. But Taiwan still ranks ahead the markets in mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia, which are also covered in the IDC survey.

IDC noted that the high growth rate has prompted leading international suppliers of games machines like Sony and Microsoft to move into the online market.

Wireless telecom company Nokia has already put N-Gabe mobile phones on the market to allow customers to play the online games.