Son of China's richest man to launch Panda TV e-sports streaming service to rival Amazon's Twitch

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Panda TV will look to capitalise on the booming Chinese e-sports market. Photo: AP

Published: 7:01am, 8 Sep 2015Updated: 12:35pm, 19 Jun 2017

The son of China's richest man is setting up an e-sports streaming service that will go head-to-head with Amazon's Twitch.tv, it was revealed this week.

Wang Sicong, whose father is Dalian Wanda Group chairman Wang Jianlin, said on microblogging service Weibo that he will be chief executive of Panda TV, an online entertainment company focused on broadcasting live e-sports events.

According to QQ Tech, a number of core members of popular professional e-sports teams, both overseas and Chinese, will join Panda TV as anchors and hosts.

READ MORE: Hong Kong's first all-female e-sports gaming team aim to smash stereotypes

There are an estimated 408 million online gamers in China, spending a combined 114 billion yuan (US$17.6 billion) annually, according to local media. Around 56 per cent watch e-sports competitions.

The global professional e-sports market generated US$194 million in revenue last year, and is expected to grow to more than US$465 million by 2017, according to research firm Newzoo.

US e-commerce giant Amazon bought streaming service Twitch.tv for US$940 million in September 2014. As of January this year, the service had more than 1.5 million broadcasters attracting 100 million viewers each month.

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