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Kwalee continues its expansion with new office in China

Chris Wallace 2nd September 2020 Business News

Mobile game publisher Kwalee is continuing to expand this year, setting up a new office and team based in China.

The new office’s aim is to help grow the brand and its games’ presence in the region, while also enabling Kwalee to work closer with key local partners.

The publisher is looking to hire 5-10 employees within the next year for the new China office, and has already begun by hiring Penny Qian as head of business development. Qian’s appointment highlights Kwalee’s ambitions in the region, with her experience including roles at AppLift, Tencent and Applovin.

The new office will work alongside the 80+ strong Kwalee HQ in the United Kingdom, as well as Kwalee Bangalore – the new India studio which was launched earlier this year in May. Specifically, the new Chinese studio will focus on business development, marketing and third party publishing, an area that has become a focus for the growth of the brand.

The company’s growth so far this year has included multiple new hires, the new Bangalore studio and an exclusive publishing partnership with no-code game development platform Buildbox. Additionally, the company has seen a number of game launches in 2020, including Line Up: Draw the Criminal, Bake it and OverTake, which together have been downloaded more than 40 million times.

The company hopes that their new Chinese presence will build upon the success of its existing titles, as well as extending the reach of its publishing team.

“China is the biggest mobile gaming market in the world, and while we have been able to grow at a great rate to this point, the China office presents an opportunity to become even more of an international brand and it was clear it was the next step we needed to make,” said CEO David Darling CBE.
“Kwalee China will benefit all of our work, as stronger relationships with partners in the country will help to bring our games to a wider audience, but we’re also very excited to meet more developers in this area. There’s such innovative talent in China and with our experience in publishing mobile games, we know this could result in the perfect partnership between us and this pool of talent. My aim was always to grow Kwalee internationally, and it’s great to see that happening”.

 

Penny Qian, Kwalee’s first addition to the Chinese team also added: “Having worked in the games industry for over three years, primarily within mobile, I’ve long been an admirer of Kwalee and their amazing growth in the hypercasual space. When the opportunity arose to be a part of this success story and to help the business really grow in China, I couldn’t turn it down. I’m looking forward to using what I know and my connections to really help grow Kwalee in China, and can’t wait to see the great games that come out of this as a result!”

 

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About Chris Wallace

Chris is a freelancer writer and was MCV/DEVELOP's staff writer from November 2019 until May 2022. He joined the team after graduating from Cardiff University with a Master's degree in Magazine Journalism. He can be found on Twitter at @wallacec42, where he mostly explores his obsession with the Life is Strange series, for which he refuses to apologise.

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