Last year, the global mobile gaming market grew to $68.5 billion. This growth was influenced by several underlying factors, making experts believe that the numbers will continue soaring this year. According to market experts, the global mobile gaming market will hit $76.7 billion, representing a 12% market growth.
Based on a report released by Sensor Tower earlier this, there were over a hundred thousand game publishers on Google Play and Apple’s App Store during the third quarter of 2019. That’s almost 15% of the total number of app publishers on both platforms.
This year, industry experts predict that consumers will collectively spend over 670 billion hours playing games on their mobile phones. That’s a significant increase, considering that people spent about 558 billion hours in 2019. This growth has been brought by the substantial rise of mobile use for online gaming, as game publishers continue releasing mobile-compatible versions of popular titles.
Today, about 33% of all application downloads are related to mobile games, accounting for 74% of all consumer expenditures at Google Play and Apple’s App Store. That doesn’t come as a surprise, considering that over 1/3 of the global population enjoy playing mobile games.
Research also shows that at least 50% of all mobile app users in the globe play games. That makes the gaming app category as popular as music applications like Apple Music and Spotify and second only to communications and social media apps in terms of the time spent.
A Growing Market
In 2020, the mobile gaming industry will continue to outpace PC gaming in term of revenue growth. Ultimately, the PC gaming market share will continue shrinking over the next few years, dipping below 20% by 2022. Mobile gaming will also continue outpacing the revenue growth in the consoles gaming market.
According to experts, PC gaming will claim about 23% of the total revenue in the gaming industry this year, while console gaming accounts for 31%. Combined, the two will claim a 54% market share, while mobile and tablet gaming accounts for the remaining 46%. This huge market share will continue expanding over the years, accounting for about 50% of the gaming market revenue by 2022.
Looking at market share geographically, Asia-Pacific accounted for 47% in 2019 gaming revenue, followed by North America, which accounted for 26%. Africa and the Middle East followed closely behind at 23%, while Latin America accounted for 4%. However, at least 48% of the 2019’s consumer expenditure on gaming came from China and the US.
A New Era
With 5G powering advancements in cloud gaming, 2020 is set to mark a new era for mobile gaming. Cloud gaming will help to expand the possible gaming experiences, adding another stratum to the gaming market. While these games will not likely transform casual gamers into hardcore title holders, they are likely to contribute to the value of this growing market significantly.
In the next decade, hardcore gamers are also expected to spend more money on mobile gaming through monthly subscription services. Last year, both Apple and Google unveiled their respective gaming subscription services, geared towards mid and hardcore gamers instead of casual players. As such, you can expect this rapidly growing market to reach new heights throughout the 2020s.
