China All Digital plans major investments in ACG sector

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese All Digital Publishing Group Co Ltd, one of China's largest digital publishing groups, recently announced its plan to lead the country's emerging ACG (animation, comic and game) industry in the next 10 years.

The Beijing-based company plans to invest 250 million yuan ($36.76 million) to acquire a 13.51 percent stake in video-sharing website AcFun and spend another 250 million yuan for a 20 percent stake of Shanghai-based game firm MorningTech.

ACG, rooted in Japan, and which has millions of fans in China, is fascinated with er ci yuan (a two-dimensional world) created by animated titles, comic books and video games.

"China's ACG industry is in a golden era now, with a rough market value of hundreds of millions yuan," says Tong Zhilei, the chairman and president of Chinese All.

He says ACG will dominate Chinese culture consumption in the future.

A report by iResearch shows that China's ACG fans will touch 81.99 million by 2017. And a report by Citic Securities also shows that the market value of ACG, currently between 200 and 250 billion yuan, could surge to 500 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, with the Chinese All investment, AcFun could reach more users and let more people learn about the "bullet-screen" culture, says Liu Yanyan, the CEO of AcFun.

Bullet screening, popular in Japan, allows viewers to type comments on screen as a form of online communication while watching a movie, or a television drama. AcFun is one of China's earliest websites to introduce this kind of screening, which now is popular among youngsters.