China's video game industry brought in $9.7 billion last year

China's video game industry brought in $9.7 billion in revenue in 2012, marking a 35.1 percent increase from 2011, Techweb reports.

According to the 2012 China Game Industry Report, the online game market represented more than 90 percent of revenue, bringing in $9.1 billion (56.96 billion Chinese Yuan). Mobile gaming represented a smaller segment of the market, bringing in only $520 million, while dedicated gray market gaming devices represented only 0.1 percent of sales.

Compared to the U.S., data released by the Entertainment Software Association for 2011 (data for 2012 is not yet available) showed that Americans spent $24.75 billion on video games, hardware and accessories.

The Chinese games market is expected to match these figures in the coming years, with the 2012 China Game Industry Report predicting that the local game market will grow to $21.7 billion by 2017 with a projected annual growth rate of 12.4 percent.

PC and online gaming are the front-runners in the Chinese games industry, with mobile trailing behind due to the difficulty of monetizing mobile games. The Next Web reports that the majority of smartphone users in China have Android devices, and "numerous developers have noted that making money off Android, the dominant platform in China, has not been easy."

Mobile games sales currently account for 5.4 percent of the total gaming revenue in China.