China will account for 28 percent of the world’s gaming market this year, according to the latest report by e-sports and video games analysis firm Newzoo.

China will further cement its position as the world’s biggest gaming market as the country set to generate 37.9 billion US dollars’ worth of revenue. According to Newzoo’s 2018 Global Games Market report, the bulk of China’s spending is on mobile games, which will represent 61 percent of the total domestic market this year, before further increasing to 70 percent by 2021.

Mobile gaming will represent the biggest engine of growth in the global gaming sector over the next few years, with Newzoo suggesting mobile games will be a 100 billion US dollar industry in their own right by 2021.

This year, mobile gaming is set to make up the majority of global spending on games for the first time, with an estimated worldwide spend of 70.3 billion US dollars. Newzoo estimates that 137.9 billion US dollars will be spent overall on gaming in 2018.

Previous research by Newzoo into China’s gaming industry has suggested that the country has some 560 million gamers, representing more than 70 percent of the total online population.

The bulk of those gamers use mobile devices to access their favorite games, and this has been one of the biggest factors in Tencent’s ascent as the world’s biggest gaming company. 

The company raked in 29.8 billion yuan (4.68 billion US dollars) worth of revenue from PC and smartphone gaming in 2017, with revenue from its mobile games business skyrocketing by 59 percent.