Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers.
Lu Sun - Lehman Brothers
Good morning, everyone. I actually have two questions. I will speak Chinese first and then translate into English.
(Question asked in Mandarin)
My first question is regarding the fourth quarter online games guidance. I think there is a pretty big drop. Can management please comment on the competitive landscape, and also some future outlook for the game industry? Thank you.
Michael Tong
Thank you, Lu Sun. The main reason for the guidance of minus 6% to 9% is mainly because of Fantasy Westward Journey and we are looking at a similar rate of drop for Fantasy Westward Journey, similar to the rates of the decrease in the guidance. The main reason is because we have experienced quite a severe drop of the number of users around September, which is the last month of this quarter. Such a drop, even though we are looking at back on track to a normalized growth, it seems that it is difficult to be able to achieve to a similar level like it was in July.
So even compared to December to July, it is difficult for December to catch up with July’s figures. It seems that we are going to experience quite a drop on a quarterly basis in this way.
In terms of the competition in the markets, why don’t I just take the chance to go through why there is such a big drop in September. Obviously, because as we explained, the Japanese flag and all of these things. In addition, I would say that obviously there are some games in the market, games like [Sudoku] which is the game offered by GameSoft and also some other games are doing quite well in the markets. I wouldn’t say that they are totally targeting directly at Fantasy Westward Journey, but I think there are more free games in the market, and in some way I would say that gamers definitely would like to try the free games a little bit and this has, in some way, affected Fantasy Westward Journey as well.
Lu?
Operator
Your next question comes from Wallace Cheung - Credit Suisse.
Michael Tong
Operator? Can you let the person who asks to finish or comment on my answer first, or at least we listen to ?thank you?? Can you go back to Lu?
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