I just received a press release announcing that Spil Games was nominated for the China Trader Award 2008. This is a yearly award given to the most successful Dutch company that is active in China. Spil made it to the last three, and on November 13 the winner will be announced during a festive award ceremony.

I am very happy with this, and I want to use this occasion to thank Spil’s founders Peter Driessen and Bennie Eeftink that they had the vision to become active in China in early 2006, and that they gave me the opportunity to set up and grow this business for them. Without their knowledge and support Spil Games Asia would have never taken off.

A major reason why foreign businesses fail in China is because management cannot act independently from headquarters (see for example Yahoo or Ebay China). But luckily they understood that I needed the freedom to run the business independent from their other worldwide operations, and that was an important reason why we managed to grow so fast. Thanks for the chance to do this and congratulations to the whole Spil Games team with the nomination!

The press release:
HYVA, ROYAL BOON EDAM GAMES AND SPIL GAMES GROUP NOMINATED FOR CATHAY PACIFIC CHINA TRADER AWARD 2008

Schiphol, September 17 2008 – The nominees are known for the Cathay Pacific China Trader Award 2008 (in alphabetical order):

— Hyva (www.hyva.nl)
— Royal Boon Edam (www.boonedam.nl)
— Spil Games Group (www.spilgames.com)

These three Dutch companies are all very successful in China. Through innovation, creativity and corporate sustainability they are able to distinguish themselves from their competitors and managed to maintain in the complex and constantly changing Chinese market.
Hyva a global multinational company which is offering a wide range of technical products and components, mainly used in connection with hydraulic loading and unloading systems on trucks and trailers for the road transportation industry in on and off road applications. In 2004, the first office of Hyva in China opened and now they opened already 3 offices waste collection and treatment facilities in municipal authorities of a large number of cities across China.

Royal Boon Edam began in 1873 as carpentry and went in 1970 to focus fully on revolving doors. Under the leadership of the Huber family a unique leadership position built in the market for revolving and security entrees. Since 2002, Boon Edam production set up in Beijing. Since then, Royal Boon Edam has a marketshare of more than 60% in exclusive hotels in China but they also placed doors in the CCTV Building and they are placing the two highest revolving doors around the world in the China World Trade Tower in Beijing.

Spil Games Group is a leader in the field of online game portals and gaming traffic. In China, Spil Games has become in two years the second largest player in the field of flash games (free games) with the websites game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.com. At this moment Spill Games is the largest foreign game site in China with over 21 million unique visitors per month. In Shanghai Spill Games also set up its own game development studio where most games are remembered. This studio is already the largest flash games studio in China.

During the festive award ceremony on November 13, 2008 at Country Estate Duin & Kruidberg, Santpoort, we will announce the award winner. Besides the actual award, the winner receives two Business Class tickets to Hongkong and five overnight stays at one of the Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. This year the Hong Kong Shooting Star Award will be presented to a young Dutch enterprise operating from Hong Kong. The Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presented occasionally will be received by Mr. Rattan Chadha, former CEO of Mexx.

Note: In the original press release Spil Games was misspelled as Spill Games (also the website was misspelled).

Furthermore, the figures in the press release were based on early July. At that time we had 21 million unique visitors, in the meantime we already have 32 million visitors per month!