There are now over 20 million mobile gamers in the UK; that’s one in three of the entire population which, when you take into account very old, very young and otherwise unable people – is a remarkably high figure. And more than six million of these gamers play on smartphones pretty much every single day. These incredible statistics have been produced by tech research company comScore.
The report illustrates very well the explosive growth of all things mobile over recent years – and particularly mobile gaming. But there are also interesting figures within the overall statistics. Apparently, for example gaming of one sort or another on mobile devices is now beginning to overtake photo-messaging. And it doesn’t lag too far behind more ordinary mobile uses such as traffic news reports, weather forecasting, plus other news and search facilities etc., as well as social networking use as a mobile activity. The latter, by the way, comes in somewhere in the region of 22 million people.
It’s not surprising, therefore, to see the mad scramble for market share across all sorts of different mobile markets – from the devices and networks themselves, through top products, games, search engine optimisation and endless other online markets. The key players in all these sectors of course realise that market share Is everything – and that profit-making may come at a later date. It’s for his reason that we see the likes of Google Inc., Facebook Inc., and the mobile networks reaching tremendously giddy market valuations even though significant profits may be many years down the line.
Gaming is clearly the current biggie in the UK mobile market, though. In fact, the numbers of people playing frequently has nearly doubled over the last two and a half years. And there’s also a near even gender split with 52% females and 48% males currently playing. The big growth has come the app stores including Apple, Google, and others – and from “freemium” games including Top Eleven, Tapped Out, Candy Crush Saga, and The Simpsons.
Meanwhile the scramble for the paid gaming market continues apace, too. Bingo and online casino sites are a major slice of the paid gaming pie. Big names like bgo, Sky Vegas and 32Red are investing heavily in the industry and are doing everything to attract new players to their sites. Promotions and bonuses come at the forefront of this effort. The bgo casino, for example, is trying to be very creative in terms of gameplay and community building with its effort alongside pushing ever more generous welcome bonuses and promotions.
BGO, in particular, seems to be gaining popularity at the expense of its rivals with some superbly creative ads and very generous intro bonuses etc. Bingo is also interesting in light of the report – which suggests that most of us are actually gaming at home – rather than whilst travelling / commuting etc. In fact, close to almost two-thirds of UK mobile gamers are playing at home.
So where next for the mobile gaming market? Whatever direction it takes – you can more or less guarantee it will take us by surprise.
