It is estimated that the gaming market has is worth over $150 billion US dollars, out of which 45% or $68.5 billion comes from mobile gaming. Now that’s tremendous growth with an average of 10.2% year on year and with it has come a number of acquisitions since everyone wants a piece of this expanding pie.
In the past 18 months, the global gaming industry has seen a whopping $9.6 billion being poured into it. If investments continue to flow at its current pace, the investments generated in 2020 could be exponentially higher by the end despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
So, the question that many people and even experts are asking is why mobile gaming is growing so exponentially? The simple answer to that being the low barrier to entry for players, we’ll get into the details of that below.
Mobile Gaming Industry on a Healthy Trajectory
It is estimated that the mobile gaming industry will grow to a whopping $196 billion by 2022. That is a CAGR of around +9% from 2018 to 2020, but experts explain that this is a conservative estimate. It does not take into account the fact that there are growth spurts brought on by the introduction of new technology.
The mobile gaming industry is poised to generate $95.4 billion sometime around 2022 and will account for almost half of the entire gaming industry. The trend is being brought on by smartphones, and that will drive mobile gaming revenues to $79 billion in 2022.
While mobile gaming is, in fact, the fastest-growing gaming segment of the industry, the overall growth is slowing down in already mature markets like Western Europe, North America, Japan, and a few other countries. However, it is growing in emerging markets like North Africa, India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asian countries. So, these countries will contribute the most growth to the segment.
It is also important to take a couple of other factors into consideration, too, which includes the growing number of cross-platform gaming titles, an increasing number of smartphone users, and improvement in mobile hardware. 4G and now 5G will make mobile gaming even more accessible, which adds to overall marketing growth.
A Large Part of Mobile Games is Mobile Gambling
The global mobile gaming market is expected to top at around $53.75 million USD by 2025, which is a CAGR of around 10%. That’s significant growth, but figures from mobile gambling casinos like kasinobonukset reveal that their growth is much faster-paced. Back in 2018, Europe was leading the online mobile gambling market share by 57.20% percent, and the Asia Pacific, which today is expected to see the fastest growth, by CAGR 13% at the very least by 2025. If anything, it shows that mobile gambling is becoming just as popular and arguably may end up being more popular than conventional mobile gaming over the years.
Mobile Gaming Has a Low Barrier to Entry
Mobile gaming does not require people to buy dedicated gaming hardware. There is no need for a gamer to invest in a beefy gaming computer or buy the latest next-gen console. A mid-range smartphone running the latest version of Android or iOS is all that’s needed.
While most high-end or flagship phones cost upwards of a thousand dollars, it isn’t a requirement for most games. Many popular games are optimized to ensure that even people with cheaper or older chipsets can run the game consistently. Also, factoring in the fact that mobile hardware is becoming increasingly cheaper. Midrange phones are becoming more powerful, and that means phones on the lower end are incrementally getting into what used to be midrange power territory. All of this means that anyone with a phone will soon be able to enjoy 90% if not more mobile games.
Conclusion
The mobile gaming market share is already significant, especially when you compare it to a decade ago. Not only has technology influenced growth, but in some cases encouraged it. The lower prices of increasingly powerful mobile chipsets mean that games will only get better and more varied, catering to the demand for gaming on demand. Faster refresh rate screens on mobile devices are already putting mobile gaming on par with desktop and console title experiences. So, the future for mobile gaming is indeed bright.