Tencent's Caitlyn Chen: "Basketball's great potential in China gives us endless opportunities''

XI'AN - Chinest digital media giant Tencent used the FIBA World Basketball Summit as an opportunity to highlight the company's continuing commitment to being innovative and responsive to the demands of both fans and customers alike.

Caitlyn Chen, Vice-President of Tencent, talked about mobile phones, cutting edge technology and the importance of youth as a target audience to her company's business. She also emphasized the desire for the company headquartered in the southeastern Chinese city of Shenzhen - and which is  a partner of FIBA - to not just connect people, but to especially do so with ones that have interesting, compelling content.

"As an internet company, we have felt there is no boundary for media," she said. "There is no border, no boundary for media development. I think this also applies to sport."

"DURING OUR MARKET RESEARCH, A LOT OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE SAID THEY THINK BASKETBALL IS THE TOP SPORT ACTIVITY IN CHINA AND IN THE WORLD. SO IN TERMS OF THE CHINESE MARKET, WE SEE THIS AS GREAT POTENTIAL."- Chen

Chen talked at length about young people and how they use smart phones.

"Not long ago, a report was issued (and which indicated) that youths born after 2000 are smart, independent and confident," she said. "In China, we have a population of 160 million youths who are born between 2000 and 2010. Among them we are happy to see that over 70 (percent) say they are following closely at least one sporting activity. From this, we can see they are not just using phones or smart media to play games."

And the sport of choice for the majority of their young users?

"During our market research, a lot of the young people said they think basketball is the top sport activity in China and in the world," Chen pointed out.

"A lot of them are basketball fans and follow basketball games closely, or they actually participate in playing basketball themselves. So in terms of the Chinese market, we see this as great potential."

Chen says the aim for Tencent is to give the mobile users, or fans, as good of an experience as they possibly can.

"About 71 percent of users of mobile media watch the games or follow the events," she said. "Out of that 71 percent, about 41 percent of them are great fans of basketball.

"And also during our survey, about 40 percent of the mobile users indicated they have requirements for the user experience. That means the media, presented by the mobile devices, should give them the true feeling of being present at the basketball games. So this has sent us a very clear signal that we need to give the audience the best seats in the arena."

Fans of teams on mobile phones are both boys and girls, Chen revealed.

"There is a growing number of female fans," she said. "If they say that three out of every 10 boys likes basketball, I would say maybe the ratio for girls is that five out of every 10 girls would be very interested in basketball or basketball games."

Part of the digital experience, Chen went on, is that fans like to do other things while the game is on.

"Only 22 percent of the users said they would watch the whole game without being interrupted or distracted. The majority of them would chat with each other or watch videos of movies or do other things," she explained.

"This means that as the game organizers, we need to provide more interactive opportunities and more intriguing scenes to capture the engagement of the users and the audience."

Chen also remarked how basketball is often a big subject on social media.

"On the day of Kobe's Bryant retirement, there were over 1 million posts and chats on social media (in China)," she recalled. "Basketball will always be a key topic in social media."

FIBA