$70 Billion Mobile Games Market Blows Past PC And Console
Mobile games will take over the majority of the global games market in 2018. The roughly $70.3 billion in value from mobile gaming accounts for more than double the value derived from PC ($32.9 billion) and console (34.6 billion), according to a new report that explores mobile gaming opportunities.
The report, published by Newzoo, also speculates that mobile gaming will be a $106.4 billion market by 2021. It should grow to encompass almost 60% of the overall global market for gaming in the next three years.
Overall, the global gaming market is expected to expand from a value of $70.3 billion in 2018 to $180.1 billion by 2021.
Interestingly, the vast majority of mobile gamers are based outside of the U.S. China leads the way with approximately 580 million mobile gamers, followed by the Middle East and Africa region with 346 million mobile gamers. Another 304 million mobile gamers are based in Asia, outside of China. North America comes in behind Latin America and Western Europe, estimated to host roughly 166 million mobile gamers.
Asians are also spending the most money on mobile gameplay. In 2018, China and Japan will, by themselves, account for more than 51% of all consumer spending on mobile games. Latin America is actually experiencing the highest year-over-year growth in spend with a 29.4% increase to $2.2 billion in 2018.
Mobile esports is just one small component of the global games market, but it is experiencing heavy growth, mainly in Asia. Total revenues from media rights, advertising, sponsorship, merchandise and tickets, and game publisher fees related to mobile esports is expected to come in at roughly $906 million in 2018 and rise to $1.65 billion by 2021.
The increase in share of high-end smartphones and larger screens around the globe has undoubtedly contributed and will continue to contribute to mobile games’ rise. Newzoo says that as of June 2018, 1 billion high-end active smartphones were owned around the world, which is up a whopping 76% year-over-year.
