2026 China E-sports Industry Research Report
Abstract
Industry Scale: In 2025, the market size of China's esports industry reached about 1.96 trillion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of 9.5%, and the overall market size is expected to exceed 2 trillion yuan in 2026; the number of esports users in China reached about 513 million in 2025, with the user penetration rate at a relatively high level.
Industry Dynamics: Against the backdrop of the diverging paths of global esports sportsization, the official event system in Asia continues to improve, the full-link penetration of AI reconstructs industrial efficiency and experience boundaries, breakthroughs in innovation emerge in the Search-Fight-Extract category in the shooting track, and provincial regional leagues kick off a new cycle of event sinking. Multi-line innovations advance in tandem, driving continuous improvement of industrial development quality and ecological boundaries.
Industry Outlook: China's esports industry has steadily entered a high-quality development stage of stock quality improvement, with its growth logic accelerating the shift from scale expansion to value upgrading, and the connotation and value boundary of industrial development usher in systematic upgrading: the dual-track deepening of sportsization and popularization, the accelerated global output of esports IP system and cutting-edge technologies, and the innovation of the "esports +" integration model jointly drive the release of industrial value.
Overview of the Development of the Esports Industry
Key Milestones of China's Esports Industry
Multi-dimensional empowerment on the policy side and continuous in-depth cultivation on the event side jointly drive the high-quality development of the esports industry
Market Size of China's Esports Market
The market size is about to cross the 200-billion-yuan threshold, and the industry's growth has entered a new stage of steady quality improvement
In 2025, the market size of China's esports industry reached about 1.96 trillion yuan, up 9.5% year on year; benefiting from the expansion of new categories of esports games and the intensive launch of offline esports events, the industry growth rate rebounded compared with the previous year. It is expected that the overall esports market size will exceed 2 trillion yuan in 2026, lifting the industry volume to a new level, which marks that the esports market has shifted from the early high-speed incremental expansion stage to a steady development stage of in-depth cultivation of stock and value enhancement.
Segmented Size of China's Esports Market
Mobile esports consolidates the core basic market of the industry, and the esports ecosystem market builds diverse growth poles
From the perspective of the overall esports market structure, mobile esports games, relying on a huge user base and a mature commercialization system, support the core basic market of the esports market, and their proportion in the scale has remained stable in recent years, serving as the core support for the development of China's esports market. Segmented to the esports ecosystem market, the market in 2025 presents a ternary development pattern of "esports live streaming leading, esports events following closely, and esports derivatives keeping up", and the three major sectors jointly promote the diversified growth of the esports industry.
User Scale of China's Esports Market
The scale of esports users has entered the stage of in-depth cultivation of stock
In 2025, the number of esports users in China reached about 513 million, with a year-on-year growth of 0.4%, and the overall penetration rate of esports users is at a relatively high level. It is expected that in the next few years, the scale of esports users will continue to maintain a low-speed and steady growth trend, and is expected to reach 520 million by 2028.
China's Esports Industry Chain
Core Dynamics of the Esports Industry
New Pattern: Esports + Sportsization
Against the backdrop of the suspension of esports' admission to the Olympics, the sportsization process of esports is still continuously accelerating
Although esports' admission to the Olympics has entered a phased stagnation, the development pace of esports sportsization has not slowed down: on the one hand, after the cooperation with the IOC was terminated, Saudi Arabia has built two global esports events, the Esports World Cup (EWC) and the Esports Nations Cup (ENC), to build a new path for esports sportsization independent of the Olympic system; on the other hand, esports has achieved normalized implementation in the Asian Games, and the upcoming 2027 Asian Esports and Mind Games will form an event pattern of "comprehensive events + special events" with the Asian Games, continuously enhancing the activity of intercontinental esports events and promoting the unification of Asian esports standards and the improvement of the system.
New Application: Esports + AI
AI drives the efficiency upgrading of the esports industry and raises the ceiling of industrial value
AI is gradually upgrading from an auxiliary tool to a core production factor of the esports industry, fully penetrating core industrial links such as event experience, professional training, content production, and derivative ecology, and comprehensively improving the operation efficiency of the industry. The in-depth integration of AI and esports will not only give birth to more new event forms, content forms and commercial scenarios, but also promote the in-depth cross-field integration of esports with science and technology, cultural tourism, education and other sectors, continuously broadening the industrial boundary and value space.
New Category: Esports + Search-Fight-Extract
The shooting esports category continues to iterate and upgrade, and the Search-Fight-Extract category has become an innovative growth pole of the track
The shooting category is one of the core tracks in China's esports market. Relying on strong competitive attributes, high viewing value and a huge user base, it has long occupied an important share of the industry. In recent years, the gameplay of shooting esports games has continued to innovate, and the categories have continued to expand, with sub-categories such as tactical competition, hero shooting and Search-Fight-Extract continuously enriching product supply and injecting new growth momentum into the market. In 2026, the Search-Fight-Extract category represented by *Delta Action* completed the construction of the professional event system, officially entering the stage of professional development, further broadening the boundary of the shooting esports track.
New Ecology: Esports + Regionalization
Provincial official city leagues are rising rapidly, building a new all-domain event ecology
Since 2026, provincial city leagues represented by the Esports Super League of Jiangsu and Esports Super League of Guangdong have been launched intensively, filling the hierarchical gap between top professional events and mass events. With cities as the participating subjects, regional culture as the link, and the integration of culture, tourism and business as the feature, provincial official events not only improve the hierarchical structure of esports events, but also become the core starting point for leveraging regional consumption and promoting the integrated development of industry and city, opening a new stage for the esports industry to sink from a few core cities to diversified cities.
Prospect of Esports Industry Trends
Prospect for the Future Development of the Esports Market
China's esports industry has entered a new cycle of high-quality development
China's esports industry has crossed the high-speed growth stage driven by demographic dividends and entered a high-quality development stage of stock quality improvement. Looking ahead, the esports industry will take sportsization and popularization as the core development main line, rely on the global output of domestically developed self-developed IP and the in-depth integration of the "esports +" business format, continuously broaden the boundary of the esports industry, and realize the coordinated improvement of industrial value and social value.
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