China's New Coin of the Realm?
China's New Coin of the Realm? - by GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and JUYING QIN
China's fastest-rising currency isn't the yuan. It's the QQ coin -- online play money created by marketers to sell such things as virtual flowers for instant-message buddies, cellphone ringtones and magical swords for online games. In recent weeks, the QQ coin's real-world value has risen as much as 70%.
Selling virtual amusement to China's Internet community, the world's second largest, is big business. Tencent, a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange and famous in China for its penguin mascot, retails QQ coins for one yuan (13 cents) each, and also awards them for free to top-scoring videogamers to keep them playing. QQ's virtual universe is a marketing tool too -- used by the likes of Coca-Cola Co. for promotions. According to one government estimate, the total volume of trading in virtual items in China last year was worth about $900 million. About 45% of that went for items in the Tencent world.
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