Company saw sales revenue soar over 570 percent on a yearly basis in the first half

With its mobile applications being widely used in economies in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South Asia, and gaining growing popularity in Japan and South Korea, Newborn Town Inc, a Chinese mobile internet service provider, said it will focus more on user value growth in developed markets including North America and Europe over the next five years.

Many opportunities arose from surging demand for audio and video-interacting social apps in these markets, driven by the stay-at-home economy and the commercial use of 5G networks in many parts of the world, said Li Ping, the company's president.

Thanks to China's mature domestic market in this field and the company's strong willingness to expand globally, Newborn Town began its overseas journey from markets of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by introducing several social networking apps in 2014, and then gradually entered economies in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

Supported by more than 10 overseas branches and offices in countries such as the United States, India, Egypt, Turkey, Thailand and Indonesia, the Beijing-based company started deploying more resources to developed markets in the past two years. It gained breakthroughs in terms of app downloads and revenue, especially in North America, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

"In the short term, we plan to seize more market share in these markets and gradually develop markets in Australia and Latin America," Li said, adding that the company will increase investment in research and development on video, voice-chat and livestreaming social applications in the next stage, further enriching product functions and optimizing the customer experience.

The executive said users in developed markets such as Germany and the US are early adopters of online social networking, and have longstanding market education and purchasing habits for various services, compared with user groups in certain developing countries.

Even though the consumer groups in developed countries are not as big as emerging markets in terms of user size, they have much stronger purchasing power.

Supported by dozens of quality apps such as Yiyo, Mico and Yoho for global users in the fields of social networking and games, the company saw its sales revenue soar more than 570 percent on a yearly basis to 1.02 billion yuan ($157 million) in the first half, while it logged 120 million yuan in net profit during the period.