The global rise in the use of advanced smartphones is reportedly set to push annual revenues from mobile gaming well beyond the $100 billion milestone by 2021 and lead to the vertical accounting for approximately 59% of the entire video games market.
Revenues revelation:
This forecast was contained in a September 8 report from USA Today citing an investigation conducted by games and eSports analytics firms, Newzoo and Arm Limited. The newspaper detailed that twelve-month revenues from mobile games could reach up to $106.4 billion in three years’ time, which would represent a significant increase on the $56 billion recorded for 2017.
Smartphone advances:
The demand for more sophisticated mobile games is to be fuelled by a swell in the numbers of ‘high-end active smartphones’ and pointed to the fact that there were one billion such units on the planet as of June, which had represented a year-on-year boost of around 76%.
Chinese significance:
Furthermore, China is expected to play a large role in the future development of the industry courtesy of its estimated 577.9 million mobile gamers although the giant Asian nation’s local market could be somewhat curtailed by the imposition of stricter approval regulations and underage play-time limits.
Publisher to watch:
The report from USA Today, portions of which were reiterated on Wednesday via a story from European Gaming Media and Events, explained that the mobile games market had accounted for 46% of global gaming revenues in 2017. It additionally pointed to Tencent Holdings Limited as a particular firm to watch due to the fact that this Shenzhen-headquartered publisher holds a 40% stake in the developer behind the Fortnite title, Epic Games Incorporated.
Finally, Tencent Holdings Limited also holds a majority stake in Finnish developer, Supercell Oy, which released its Clash of Clans game in 2012, and is responsible for six of the highest growing iOS titles in China.
