Xiamen companies see business potential in emojis

Emojis created by Xiamen Starmoly Network Co. [Photo/ifeng.com]

Companies in Xiamen have started to seize on the huge business opportunities presented by the ever-increasing popularity of emojis by developing derivative products, such as cushions and toys, in addition to the emojis themselves.

Xiamen-based Starmoly Network Co is one such company, having created popular emojis with more than 1.5 billion downloads and 46 billion uses in messages to date, which are mainly used on the WeChat messaging app.

Tips from emoji users used to be the main way to get returns for these companies. However, Chinese users are not used to rewarding for emojis and therefore, it's hard for emoji companies to survive from these alone.

To find another way to turn self-developed emojis into revenue is these companies' concerns.

"Developing derivative products for emojis is the way forward for emoji firms," Lin Dongdong, chief executive officer of Starmoly, said.

Lin said that their company has opened stores on China's biggest online shopping website Taobao to sell stuffed toys, cushions, and ornaments, which are decorated with their cute emojis.

It's expected that their sales volume this year will reach millions of yuan, according to the CEO.

Another emoji company Moezar also took the same path as Starmoly and their emojis have appeared on the packaging bags of nuts, tissues and other products in recent years.

However, in order to guarantee a positive long-term development for these emoji companies, their products should be enriched with characters which have a background story rather than just a cute appearance, and that's what many emoji companies in China are currently lacking, Li Weidong, general manager of HG capital, a private equity investment institution in China, said.