Mobile games will earn $68.5 billion in 2019, according to a new report from market research firm Newzoo.
The 2019 Global Mobile Market Report notes that 48.9% of that revenue will come from games on iOS devices, while 35.8% will come from Android (reminder that free-to-play dominates this market). In the first half of the year, role-playing games made the most money. They accounted for 35.5% of the market. In total, all games on iOS and Android earned 19.4 billion downloads in the first half of 2019.
Mobile games revenue was at 56.3 billion in 2017. Newzoo expects that number to reach $96.4 billion by 2022. It also notes 2.358 billion people will play games on their phone in 2019, and 885 million of them will spend money on mobile gaming.
The report also gets specific about the kind of people who play mobile games and why. Most of them identify as “time fillers,” meaning people who play games a bit at a time to pass small amounts of time. Newzoo notes that 50% of females and 30% of males identify as time fillers.
Mobile still rules
In a report earlier this year, Newzoo noted that the entire gamin market will be worth $152.1 billion in 2019. Mobile will be the largest sector, accounting for 45% of that total. Consoles are next, earning $47.9 billion in 2019 to make up 32% of the total, followed by PC gaming making $35.7 billion at 23%.
The U.S will be the strongest market for gaming in 2019, the first time that spot doesn’t belong to China since 2015. Gaming in the U.S. will earn $36.9 billion, while China will make $36.5 billion. Asia-Pacific will remain the largest overall region for gaming, taking in $72.2 billion in 2019.
