Visitors experience e-sports products at China Cyber Games Summit, May 31, 2018. (Photo by Fan Jiashan from People’s Daily Online)

Current statistics indicate that China will face a shortfall of two million professionals in e-sports over the next five years, as only 15 percent of the market has been saturated, said China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in an industry report.

According to the Global E-sports Market Report 2019, global e-sports enthusiasts will grow to 201.2 million this year, up16.3 percent year on year, while China will have the most e-sports enthusiasts in 2019 with 75 million.

In 2018, there were over 500 major events in China, said the report.

E-sports playing was recently defined as a profession in China. Despite this, there have been over 500,000 practitioners spreading over the first-, second- and also third-tier cities across the country.

A survey on e-sports players indicated that almost 80 percent of professional e-sports players were below 30, and a majority of them had taken vocational education at junior or senior secondary schools.

Against their age and educational background, these e-sports enthusiasts earned one or three times more than the average wage in cities they’re living in.

For those top players, their annual pay generally amounts to at least 1 million yuan, according to the survey results.

China’s e-sports market has become the most influential one around the world, hitting 94.1 billion yuan in 2018, quoting statistics released by a third-party institution.

By 2020, Chinese e-sports is expected to exceed 135 billion yuan and have 430 million users, according to the third-party agency.