China’s animation industry output value continued to grow and exceeded RMB90 billion in 2013, showing a year-on-year increase of around 21.0%. Despite the overall sustained growth, each link of the industrial chain is developing to varying degrees.
From the production and broadcast market, China’s animation production suffered three consecutive years of decline (2011-2013). In 2013 China produced 358 domestic TV cartoons, a total of 204,732 minutes long, respectively down 9.37% and 8.17% year on year, mainly because it was difficult for government subsidiaries to cover the increasingly higher costs of production. In addition, the original IP resource scarcity has been a tough and unbreakable bottleneck for domestic animation.
As another major play position for animation, the Chinese animation film market has shown a rising trend in both quantity and price since 2011. In 2013, there were a total of 33 animation films released in Chinese mainland theatres, including 24 homemade and 9 imported, generating total box office of about RMB1.64 billion, up 13.34% year on year.
With respect to the animation derivatives market, in 2013 the domestic market size approximated RMB26.4 billion, up 20% year on year. As the core of China’s animation industry chain, the derivatives market has encountered stormy mergers and acquisitions since 2013, thus constantly improving and extending the animation industry chain. Representative firms are Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Co., Ltd. (Alpha Animation), Huawei Technology Co.,Ltd and Meisheng Culture & Creative Corp., Ltd.
Of which, Alpha Animation as the leader with a complete animation industry chain has continuously extended its industrial chain through the layout of online game and mobile game since 2013. In the first quarter of 2014, it gained revenue of RMB375 million (up 18.15% YoY) and net income of RMB49.8 million (up 10.28% YoY).
The toy export-oriented Huawei Technology Co.,Ltd suffered a sharp decline...