BEIJING—Chinese online-game maker Shanda Games Ltd. is seeking acquisition opportunities in China and abroad, and could spend $200 million in the next year, Chairman and Chief Executive Alan Tan said Wednesday.
The Nasdaq-listed company, a unit of Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd., is interested in companies that are strong in game development or can expand Shanda's publishing reach, Mr. Tan told Dow Jones Newswires, declining to name specific targets. It is also open to joint ventures or other partnerships in foreign markets like the U.S., he said.
Shanda Games is looking to fuel growth by expanding overseas and tying more social-networking features into its games. Early last year it acquired U.S. online-game network Mochi Media Inc. in a deal valued at $80 million; later it acquired Korean game developer Eyedentity Games for about $95 million.
The company has around $500 million in cash, Mr. Tan said.
Mr. Tan also said it is "very possible" that Shanda Games this year will break its quarterly revenue record of 1.34 billion yuan ($195.7 million), set in the fourth quarter of 2009. He didn't elaborate on how the company would accomplish this.
Revenue in the first quarter was 1.25 billion yuan, up 10% from the year-earlier 1.14 billion yuan, while net profit was down 5%, to 312.9 million yuan from 329 million yuan, mainly because of higher product-development, sales and marketing costs.
Mr. Tan also said Shanda Games plans to boost ties between social-networking websites like Renren Inc. and the multiplayer online role-playing games that produce the bulk of Shanda's revenue, such as its new Legend of Immortals. For instance, he said, Shanda plans to promote its games by letting users display their in-game achievements on third-party social-networking sites and access Shanda games using login credentials from those sites.
Shanda will also develop technology that enables users to play its role-playing games via an Internet browser instead of having to download an entire large software program first. That could cut the waiting time before playing from around two hours to 20 minutes or less, Mr. Tan said.
Multiplayer role-playing games will not decline in the market but need to expand into social and mobile platforms, he said.
In the second quarter Shanda Games had a 17.6% share of China's market for online games running on downloaded software programs, trailing only Tencent Holdings Ltd., which has 30.8%, Beijing research firm Analysys International said. The sector generated 8.76 billion yuan in revenue last year.