Global mobile game revenue grew to USD 151.9 Billion in 2018 and is expected to grow 19.6% annually at a compounded growth rate and reach USD 215.9 Billion by 2025. 50 percent of mobile app users are playing games making this app category as popular as music apps like Spotify and Apple Music and second only to social media and communications app in terms of time spent. There are now more than 2.5 billion gamers across the world and they will spend USD 152.1 Billion combined in 2019 representing an increase of 9.6 percent as compared to the previous year. The mobile games market is segmented on the basis of devices into smartphones and tablets and on the basis of the operating system (OS) into Android, iOS, Windows. However, Android OS accounts for the largest volume of downloads, iOS is expected to generate higher revenue owing to the paid nature of applications and games. On the game type; puzzle games are most played followed by Arcade, action, Adventure games, and others.
In the U.S., people’s time spent on mobile devices has also outpaced that of television with users spending eight more minutes per day on their mobile devices. By 2021, this number is predicted to more than 30 minutes. Today, the average age of a mobile gamer is 36.3 (as compared with 27.7 in 2014), the gender split is 51 percent females as compared to 49 percent men. One-third of all gamers are between the ages of 36-50.
If we look at the market share geographically, Asia-Pacific accounted for the largest market having a share of 47% followed by North America at 26 percent, Europe, Middle East, and Africa at 23 percent and finally Latin Market at 4 percent. In 2019, 48 percent of all consumer spending came from the US and China.
The mobile gaming industry has captured 46 percent of the market share amongst the global games industry in 2017. Top Mobile games of 2019 were Honor of Kings, Fortnite, Free Fire, PUBG Mobile, Pokemon GO, Subway Surfers, Color Bump 3D, Fun Race 3D, Run Race 3D, My Talking Tom, and others.
Market Trends
It will be hyperbolic to say 2019 a year of 5G but 2019 was the year of transition towards 5G adoption. 2020 may be or may not be the year 5G truly becomes mainstream but one thing is sure that 5G will continue to power the latest advancement in the gaming ecosystem i.e. cloud gaming. In 2019, Google and Microsoft launched their own cloud gaming solutions. By expanding the range of gaming experiences and creating more accessibility and feasibility to various gaming titles, cloud solutions are likely to contribute significantly to the value of this rapidly growing market.
Today mobile games account for 2019 was the year of hyper-casual games with their growth of 70 percent year on year. However, hyper-casual genre games have peaked in recent times as users are no longer as susceptible to the aggressive ad campaigns as they were in the past. In 2019, the number of game studios mostly of hyper-casual and casual space began merging and monetizes their activities into one unified team.
By the end of 2019, almost 1/3 global population (2.4 Billion) were playing games. Usage in mobile game revenue will continue to outpace the growth of PC in the coming years which will ultimately result in a shrinking PC market share dipping below 20 percent in 2022.
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