One-third of all mobile gamers spend money, and Amazon may be the best place for developers to reach the most lucrative customers, according to market research firm NewZoo. The company's Mobile Game Trending Report takes a global look but breaks out a number of data points specific to North America and the EU.
- 1.5 billion consumers worldwide will have played a game on a smartphone or tablet.
- North America boasts 64 million mobile game spenders (49 percent of all mobile gamers) that spend $7.68 per month. This totals to $5.9 billion in mobile revenues, an increase of 51 percent compared to last year.
- 64 percent of those visiting the Amazon Appstore spend money on mobile games, compared with 47 percent of iPhone users using Apple's App Store, 57.1 percent of iPad users and 37 percent of those who download games on Google Play.
- On average one in five mobile spenders is a man older than 35 and spenders are most likely to have a full-time job and a large income.
- More than a third of mobile spenders play together with their children regularly and spend a large share of their game budget on their kids.
"The share of spenders on smartphone and tablet games are steadily growing closer to that of console and PC games. This comes as a surprise to some due to the common misunderstanding that a pay-upfront business model gives a 100% player/spender ratio," the report says. "Monthly single digit conversion rates of individual games are often misinterpreted as share of mobile gamers that spends money."
If the Amazon factor seems odd, NewZoo associates it with some of the demographic information contained deeper in the report. For example, the data suggests that those who spend in mobile games are fairly big shoppers overall, and that obviously aligns well with an e-commerce platform such as Amazon's, and even smartphones like the Fire, which is basically a tool for making purchases. Amazon, meanwhile, has also been spending the last few years doing a lot to court developers with a range of services, such as A/B testing. It could be those things are starting to pay off--not just for Amazon, but for the mobile game developers who are seeing more income from their work.
For more:
- get the report here
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