Mobile online games rack up rapid gains

The expansion of fourth-generation services and the proliferation of smartphones attracted more Chinese consumers to mobile games in 2014, the China Internet Network Information Center said.

A study by the center showed that China had 248 million mobile online game players as of Dec 31, surging 32.9 million year-on-year. The number of people accessing the Internet from mobile devices totaled 557 million as of the same date, up 56.7 million from a year earlier and accounting for 85.8 percent of the nation's online population.

According to San Francisco-based investment firm Digi-Capital Ltd, mobile gaming was the only segment of the gaming market to experience double-digit growth in 2014 around the world.