Halfbrick, the leading Australian games studio behind the chart-topping mobile games Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, today announced its partnership with premium Chinese Android developer and brand management team, iDreamSky (iDS). With more than 200 distribution channels, device manufacturers and content developers as partners, iDS will officially be Halfbrick’s Chinese distribution partner.

"Halfbrick and Fruit Ninja are becoming more popular in China on a daily basis. It’s an amazing market and one we want to ensure has the best and most appropriate content for our millions of fans," said Shainiel Deo, CEO of Halfbrick. "Working with iDreamSky will help increase the game’s overall brand awareness and expand Halfbrick’s global reach."

The new partnership will not only expand Halfbrick’s presence in China, but will also activate Skynet, iDS’s mobile gaming network with in-game micro-transactions and social network integration for Fruit Ninja. As the only distributor of Fruit Ninja Android in Greater China, iDS will also be co-developing the feature phone version of Fruit Ninja with VODONE, a leading Chinese feature phone game developer and distributor.

"Fruit Ninja is one of the most popular mobile games of all time and this is an opportunity for further success in China," said Michael Chen, CEO of iDreamSky. "This partnership allows us to expand the Fruit Ninja audience through our existing distribution channels."

A key goal of Halfbrick, iDS and other strategic partners is to clean the smartphone market of unofficial pirated and clone versions of popular IP like Fruit Ninja. It’s a move to help legitimize the game and mobile market and give high profile developers the opportunity to ensure their IP is always available at the highest possible quality.

Halfbrick and iDS are also working with Domob, a mobile advertising service to ensure ad content is localized and relevant to the China market.