LONDON, STOCKHOLM and BEIJING, April 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

King Digital Entertainment plc (NYSE: KING), the leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile world, today announced it will launch a Chinese version of its wildly popular Candy Crush Saga game for the Chinese market exclusively with Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent", SEHK stock code: 00700), a leading provider of comprehensive Internet services in China.

This agreement further extends King's presence in key Asian markets. It follows the successful launches of Candy Crush Saga in Korea and Japan in 2013. The Chinese version will be available via Tencent's Mobile QQ and Weixin Game Centers.

Riccardo Zacconi, CEO of King commented: 

"I am thrilled to be launching Candy Crush Saga with Tencent in China. Tencent has the largest mobile social network in China and is a great partner to work with. I look forward to working together to make Candy Crush Saga as popular in China as in the rest of the world."

Steven Ma, Senior Vice President of Tencent said:  

"Tencent always hopes to bring global premier mobile games to China, and Candy Crush is one of the best. We are excited that our collaboration will combine King's enjoyable mobile gaming experience and Tencent's strong game publishing and operation capabilities in China. We are looking forward to bringing great moments of fun to Chinese users soon."

About King: 

King Digital Entertainment plc (NYSE: KING) is the leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile world. It has a network of 324 million monthly unique users as of December 2013 and offers more than 180 exclusive games in 14 languages through its king.com and royalgames.com websites, Facebook, and mobile distribution platforms such as the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and the Amazon Appstore. King has seven game studios in Stockholm, Bucharest, Malmö, London, Barcelona and Berlin along with offices in San Francisco and Malta.

About Tencent: 

Tencent uses technology to enrich the lives of Internet users. Every day, hundreds of millions of people communicate, share experiences, consume information, seek entertainment, and shop online through its integrated platforms. Tencent's diversified services include QQ, Weixin and WeChat for communications; Qzone for social networking; QQ Game Platform for online games; and QQ.com for information.

Tencent was founded in Shenzhen in 1998 and went public on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited in 2004. Tencent has been one of the 50 constituent stocks of the Hang Seng Index since June 10, 2008, under stock code 00700. Tencent seeks to evolve with the Internet by investing in innovation, providing a hospitable environment for its partners, and staying close to its users.

For more information, please visit http://www.tencent.com/ir.

Forward Looking Statements 

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding King Digital Media's future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including: our ability to attract new users in this new market and to achieve significant engagement and monetization levels; intellectual property concerns; competition; privacy and regulatory concerns; security breaches; and general economic conditions. These and other potential risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the results predicted are more fully detailed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our final prospectus filed with the SEC on March 27, 2014, which is available on the SEC website at http://www.sec.gov. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events.

SOURCE King Digital Entertainment PLC