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Review of the mobile games market for 2017, with forecast for 2018

Review of the mobile games market for 2017, with forecast for 2018

The review of mobile games market is focused on the trends in the global games market. This includes the changing electronics consumer habit, the demand and factors that influences the rise in demand of these mobile games. It also focuses on the growth and changing dynamics of the mobile gaming sector. The main focus will be on the distribution of markets on the gaming sector. This will also bring to light the total revenue shares of the mobile games market by region.

The electronics gaming industry cannot be excluded from the entire review as the 2017 trends show a rapid increase in mobile games share compared to console and PC platforms. The global games market revenue is expected to rise to more than 115 billion in 2018 compared to 108.9 billion USD in 2017. The other sectors such as PC and Console are expected to shrink in overall market share as mobile games market increases. Smart phone are set to take the lion’s share of the entire games market. In Asia alone the growth is driven by many factors that are due to improved living standard and a rise in wealth amongst the ordinary people. This is very evident in countries such as China and India.   

The mobile games market evolved and grew with the development of mobile devices. Beginning from simple mobile phones to current advanced smart phones. With the increase in computation power the mobile games market has eclipsed all other gaming platforms such as PC and console. The sector has been mainly driven by the increasing popularity of advanced mobile phones. Due to intense competition the mobile device sector has seen rapid technological advances. The processing power increase has led the mobile games market to be more lucrative than ever. 

Another factor that has fueled the growth of revenue in the mobile games market has been the integration of sophisticated hardware, software and motion sensors. The drop in mobile data prices and mobile phone prices has also had a positive impact on the mobile games market. Social media integration with games has also seen massive growth over the past couple of years. This has improved the interactive nature of games and therefore increased the popularity of mobile games. 

Most mobile games are built for three mobile operating systems. The most popular mobile operating systems are android, Windows and iOS. Cloud computing has relieved the need to download games from the internet. Therefore mobile gamers can play games online without the need to download them to their mobile devices. This has come at a benefit for gaming enthusiasts and people who want to save space on their devices for much needed functions. The cloud gaming market is also driving the increase in the mobile games market. Revenues in this sector are set to grow in 2018 by more than 9%.

The mobile games market has generally been on the rise since the beginning of the digital age and the rise of Silicon Valley. In the year 2017 there were 2.2 billion gamers in total who generated around 108 billion USD. This gives the global gaming industry a significant share of the global economy which is growing. The digital gaming sector accounted for nearly 90% of the global gaming sector.  The mobile gaming sector was the most valuable as it generated around 42 billion USD. This gives it a 41% share of the entire digital gaming sector. When reviewing the mobile games marketing we are mainly focusing on smartphones and tablets, as they are the most widely used mobile devices. The rest of the digital marketing sector market share constitutes of PC and console. 

China was by far the largest mobile games market. About a quarter of the global mobile games revenue came from china. This can be attributed to china’s growing wealth and popularity with tech devices. Even when excluding China, Japan and Korea the Asian market is expected to be the fastest growing market in 2018. Japan and Korea are already lucrative mobile gaming markets. Asian markets such as India are set to be on the rise over the next couple of years. Attributing to economic success and the fact that the Asian middle class has been growing steadily for the past 10 years. India and China have seen much of this growth. This middle class growth has led to the growth of the smart phone market and therefore the mobile gaming market.

The second most lucrative mobile games market was North America. The North American gaming market accounted for more than 27 billion USD in 2017. This means that it experienced a 4% growth in 2017. This trend is expected to continue in 2018. The South American market is the smallest games market but has been recording an average of 13% growth over the past couple of years.   

The tablet gaming industry generated around 10.8 billion USD making the smartphone market the largest segment of the digital gaming sector. With more than 280 million tablets in use the tablet gaming segment is also expected to grow at around 11%. Smartphone gaming segment has an expected growth of more than 20% for 2018. This is likely to continue till 2020. Overall the mobile gaming industry is set to become more lucrative as it is likely going to become the main gaming platform over the next 4 years. 

Conclusion and forecast

China is set to be the dominant player in the global games market as the average income of individuals continues to grow. Over the next 4 years the Chinese gaming sector is expected to grow at around 13% per year. As stated above, this is due to the increase in income levels and rising popularity of mobile devices. Therefore the Chinese market will to continue to be the most lucrative for the next four years.  

The mobile technology innovation has been a major driver of the increasing popularity of mobile games. The majority of the market share is dominated by smartphones. Tablets have also seen steady increase in popularity. This means they have taken a significant share in the entire electronics gaming sector. In 2017 they accounted for 10.8 billion USD of the entire global gaming revenue. 

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