China In-Focus – Shares fall; video game revenue slide; China fined Didi Global $1.2 billion
RIYADH: Tech stocks fell sharply on Thursday on concerns over the fresh COVID-19 outbreak and mortgage-payment boycotts in China.
China’s blue-chip CSI300 was down 1.1 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1 per cent. The benchmark Hang Seng was down 1.5 per cent in Hong Kong.
Video game revenue falls
China’s video game sector revenues declined in the first half of 2022 for the first time since data were made available 14 years ago, as the world’s largest video game market continues to be closely monitored by Beijing.
The industry’s combined revenue declined 1.8 percent to 147.7 billion yuan ($21.8 billion) in the six months ended June, according to a report published Thursday by the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, a state-backed industry group.
This marks the first decline since the data was published in 2008 and shows that China’s massive gaming industry, once marked by unbridled growth, has been bolstered by Beijing’s efforts to strengthen surveillance of the region. Huge losses have been caused by this, including reducing the number of gaming licenses. given out and limited play time for teenagers.
The report also shows that the number of gamers nationwide fell for the first time to 665.69 million from a reported 666.57 million in December.
Chinese gaming companies’ domestic revenue fell 4.25 percent to 124.5 billion yuan. With heavy regulations at home, companies are turning to overseas markets for growth, where revenue rose 6.16 percent to nearly $9 billion in the period.
China fined Didi Global $1.2 billion
China’s cybersecurity regulator fined Didi Global Inc. $1.2 billion on Thursday, concluding an investigation that forced the ride-hailing leader to be delisted from New York within a year of its launch and to attract foreign investors. cautioned about China’s technical sector.
Didi ran away from China’s cyberspace administration when it went ahead with its US stock listing, even though it was urged to wait while a cybersecurity review of its data practices was conducted, sources previously told Reuters. Told.
The CAC said Didi violated three key laws relating to cyber security, data protection and personal information protection, a regime the country amended and expanded last year, as part of efforts to regulate its cyberspace and Companies needed to improve their handling of data.
The regulator also said that its investigation found that Didi illegally collected millions of user information and carried out data processing activities that seriously affected national security over a seven-year period beginning June 2015.
(with input from Reuters)