Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group announced a strategic partnership¹ with Japanese game developer Hit-Point, granting Alibaba exclusive rights to publish the mobile game Travel Frog in the Chinese mainland.

国内电商巨头阿里巴巴集团近日宣布与日本游戏开发公司Hit-Point建立战略伙伴关系，获得Hit-Point授权在中国内地独家发行其手游《旅行青蛙》。

It marks the company's latest move to charge into the gaming business to keep its growth momentum² strong.

这标志着该公司进军游戏行业以保持其增长势头强劲的最新举措。

From its release in December to March this year, the game was downloaded more than 16 million times by Chinese iPhone users.

自去年12月发行到今年3月，中国iPhone用户《旅行青蛙》的下载量超过1600万次。

"The partnership will help Alibaba further tap into the gaming sector," a Beijing-based independent gaming analyst³ said.

一位北京独立游戏分析师表示：“此次合作将有助于阿里巴巴进一步进军游戏业。”

"Under the partnership, Alibaba will be able to further analyze⁴ the product and have a better understanding of how to make a mega hit in the market, which will fill its gap in terms of developing games," he added.

他补充称：“根据合作，阿里巴巴将可进一步分析这款产品并更好地理解如何在游戏市场制造巨大反响，弥补阿里巴巴在游戏开发领域方面的落后。”

Alibaba's founder⁵ Jack⁶ Ma previously⁷ said the company "would rather starve to death than live on games", but the situation has changed and it is now taking aim at Tencent Holdings Ltd's dominate position in the booming games market.

阿里巴巴的创始人马云此前曾表示，该公司“宁愿饿死也不做游戏”，但情况现在发生了变化，现在该企业将目标瞄准的是腾讯控股有限公司在蓬勃发展的游戏市场的主导地位。

A report by the Game Publishers Association Publications Committee, Gamma Data Corp and the International Data Corporation shows that revenue of the gaming market grew by 23 percent year-on-year to 203.6 billion yuan ($32.4 billion) in China in 2017, with more than 60 percent contributed by Tencent and NetEase Inc.

由中国版协游戏出版物工作委员会、伽马数据和国际数据公司发布的报告显示，2017年中国游戏市场的收入达到2036.1亿元，同比增长23.0%，腾讯和网易占到了超过60%。