Jul 16, 2020|

JD Announces Partnership with Tencent Games’ KPL E-Sports Tournaments

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by Yuchuan Wang

On July 15th, JD Retail signed a strategic partnership with Tencent Games’ King Pro League (KPL) e-sports tournaments for Honor of Kings, China’s most popular game. The opening of the game’s 2020 World Champion Cup kicked off on the same day.

The partnership will focus on the development of the tournaments itself, and also involve extensive collaboration in event promotion, user expansion, fan interaction, and more.

Left: Yijia Zhang, General Manager, Tencent Interactive Entertainment Mobile E-Sports; Chairman, KPL
Left: Yijia Zhang, General Manager, Tencent Interactive Entertainment Mobile E-Sports; Chairman, KPL

 

Right: James Shao, Vice President, JD.com; Head of Marketing, JD Retail The game’s 2019 annual tournament livestreams were viewed over 24 billion times – 6.7 times total number of views of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. According to the 2020 China’s E-Sports Industry Report by iResearch, nearly half of e-sports users are under the age of 22. KPL’s massive traffic will provide a key scenario for JD to expand its young user base and new customer conversion. Leveraging JD’s extensive strengths in retail and marketing, it will help increase commercial value for both the game and its sponsors.

As China’s largest retailer for computer and digital products, this is not JD’s for foray into the e-sports industry. In 2017, JD launched JD Gaming (JDG) which has become one of China’s top e-sports organizations. With KPL partnership, JD further strengthens its reach in the gaming industry.

 

(yuchuan.wang@jd.com)

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