Fruit Ninja To Cooperate Closely with China Unicom

Today in Beijing, at the ‘China Unicom Mobile Internet Application Industry Summit’, it was reiterated how much the makers of Fruit Ninja, Halfbrick Studios will co-operate with China Unicom.

Halfbrick Studios CEO, Shaniel Deo said on stage “I’m really excited about the Chinese market and mobile internet and our fans. We have so much potential to do more for our fans and provide lasting value. Wo+ gives me one more reason to be excited.”

China Unicom, one of the leading telecom providers in China, is planning to put more energy into its mobile advertising platform. It will be looking to strong partners like Halfbrick to give advertisers strong media space for more dynamic, real time ads. Halfbrick also signed an agreement with Great Wall to co-operate in next year’s Global Mobile Internet Conference.

Only in September, Halfbrick released the Chinese version of Fruit Ninja and in just three months rapidly racked up 40 million downloads and $6 million in revenues. Of course the Chinese edition is Chinese themed with a Chinese zodiac background, more Chinese fruits and even blades representative of China’s long history.

China is now Halfbrick’s second largest market with over 30% of total game downloads. However it is estimated that 50% of Fruit Ninja downloads is pirated. So instead of trying to push against the current and generate most of its revenue through paid downloads, it is focusing on ads, in-app purchase and virtual goods.

To take advantage of OEM or manufacturer distribution channels, Halfbrick is looking to pre-load its games on Chinese mobile phone makers such as ZTE, Lenovo and Huawei.