Tencent wants its own gaming phone

Gaming phones are all the rage and rumors suggest the world’s biggest gaming company wants in

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Hong-Kong based Razer, which makes laptops and other gear for gamers, is another company that has turned to making gaming phones. (Picture: Derek Ting/SCMP)

Published: 8:50pm, 15 Apr 2019Updated: 9:01am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

The biggest gaming company in the world might be working on its own gaming phone, according to unconfirmed reports.

Tencent is better known for games like Honor of Kings (called Arena of Valor in the West) or PUBG Mobile, but it looks like it might be trying its hand at selling hardware. The Chinese tech behemoth has already contacted several manufacturers such as Razer, Asus, Weitai Technology and Black Shark, according to sources quoted by Chinese media site 36Kr.

Arena of Valor, China’s mobile League of Legends, is aiming to be the world’s go-to mobile esport

The report did not reveal the smartphone’s price or availability or whether it would be sold under Tencent’s brand. Tencent had not replied Abacus’ request for comment by the time of publication.

In China, mobile seems to be the magic word for the gaming industry. A third of China’s population -- 459 million people -- plays mobile games. That’s the size of the combined population of the US and Japan.

Although gaming phones have been around since Nokia released the underperforming N-Gage back in 2003, the trend has been picking up in the modern era of smartphone gaming.

Razer started selling a gaming-oriented smartphone in 2017. Within the last 12 months, Xiaomi launched Black Shark, Nubia put out its Red Magic, Asus released ROG and Vivo recently introduced iQOO.

Mobile gaming is already big business, and its future potential seems higher with 5G on the horizon. As Razer’s CEO Min-Liang Tan told Abacus, the higher internet speeds brought by 5G means “enabling gaming, anytime, anywhere."