Statistics and facts on Mobile Gaming

Mobile media is taking our lives by storm. The time Americans spend with mobile, non-voice content is expect to grow by nearly 461 percent over a period of seven years, from 46 minutes in 2011 to an estimated 258 minutes in 2017. In this period the growth rates were projected to be dropping, from a high of 96 percent in 2011 to 5.2 percent in 2017. In comparison, the use of all media grew on average by three percent in this time and print media consequently reported negative growth.

Mobile games contribute greatly to the high growth rate of mobile media use. On the global level, in 2014 the industry generated 24.4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue, out of which 17 billion was attributed to smartphone gaming and the remaining 7.4 billion to tablet gaming. The total figure is expected to grow to more than 44.2 billion by 2018. That same year smartphone games are estimated to account for 27 percent of the games market revenue, and together with tablet gaming revenues that number will add up to 39 percent. In terms of consumers, sources calculated that in mid 2014, there were 1.48 billion mobile gamers worldwide; half of them were located in the Asia Pacific region. North America came fourth, after MENA and Western Europe, with 152 million mobile gaming enthusiasts.

Certain studies have taken a deeper look into consumer behavior when it comes to mobile gaming. As of 2014 men in the United States appeared to have downloaded slightly more games to their mobile devices than women. In fact, at that time, women were below the national average of mobile game downloads which amounted to 2.76 per month. American mobile gamers between the ages of 18 and 24 were reported to have the highest average of games downloaded on a monthly basis, followed by 25 to 34 year olds, with 2.77 game installs per gamer among that age group. All in all, in 2014, 46 percent of U.S. mobile phone users were gaming on their devices. A year later the penetration of mobile gaming in the United States surpassed 50 percent and it is projected to grow to 63.7 percent in 2020. Out of many categories of apps available on mobile devices, gaming was the second most popular based on time spent accessing these apps. As of the fourth quarter of 2014, U.S. adult smartphone users spent an average of 602 minutes (approximately 10 hours) per month using gaming apps.

This text provides general information. Statista assumes no liability for the information given being complete or correct. Due to varying update cycles, statistics can display more up-to-date data than referenced in the text.

Picture: Wikimedia/cc, Evan-amos