Tencent published a report on the esports market in China which says that the esports market size is expected to grow to $1.5B in 2020.

China ranked second in esports-generated revenue in 2017 behind North America.

24% of esports users in China are female, 69% of which are 21-30 years old.

Regional news outlet China Money Network has released the details of a report on the Chinese esports market originally published by Tencent . The report states that the Chinese esports market is expected to grow to $1.5B in 2020, up from a market size of $760M in 2017.

In 2017, according to the report, China had an esports user based of 250M, which accounted for 64% of the 390M global esports users. The global user base is expected to grow to 590M in 2020, with Chinese users growing to 350M. This would account for 59% of global users, a 5% decrease in market share from 2017. This is likely due to the fact that, while China should see strong esports growth, other regions will continue to grow as well. Less well-developed regions like India and the Middle East could see significant growth in the next few years as established esports companies look to expand into those regions.

In terms of esports-generated revenue, China reported as the second largest market globally in 2017. North America was first with $258M in esports revenue, while China reported $104M. South Korea was ranked third with $49M in revenue generated from esports. South Korea is the most developed esports region competitively, but the sheer size of the market in China and North America yields a higher potential for revenue. This also may mean that South Korea has less room to grow its revenue, given the region’s esports saturation, while larger regions still have plenty of room in their market.

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Tencent’s report also found that 36.6% of current users began paying attention to esports in just the last two years. Demographic information revealed that roughly 24% of esports users are female, and 29% of all users are parents, 59% of which are 31 to 40 years old. While the majority of esports users are still young males, esports can appeal to girls and adults as well. This could be why the industry has seen more adult and female-oriented brand partnerships recently, like Mercedes-Benz and Sephora.

Finally, according to the report, only 47% of viewers watch esports to improve their skill at a game. More than half the viewers in China are not concerned with learning from professional players, but are consuming an entertainment product the same way traditional sports fans consume traditional sports programing. Recently, more and more traditional sports marketing agencies have launched dedicated esports divisions. This metric could indicate that the techniques used in brand activations with traditional sports will be effective with at least half the esports audience.