Mobile game downloads continue slow growth

In a presentation at the Mobile Games Forum, the latest statistics revealed by research company M:Metrics points towards a continued slow growth for mobile phone game downloads.

While 87.7 per cent of the UK population owns a handset — around 46.5 million people — only 4.8 per cent of them download games, and that figure drops to 3.3 per cent in the US.

However, while almost a quarter of people do play mobile games on a monthly basis, the vast majority are pre-loaded titles.

The presentation, by the company's senior analyst Paul Goode, also noted that there was steady growth in 3G service take up across Europe, and also in the penetration into the market of Symbian or Windows-based smartphones.

Additionally Sony Ericsson handsets were the most popular game-playing devices, something that he noted could be down to the demographic that chooses that brand — although only 20 per cent of mobile phone gamers are under 24 years old.

The research, taken from a sample size of around 15,000 in the three months to November 2007, also found that female customers were narrowly more likely to purchase games while male users were more likely to download, and far more likely to trial games.

Action and sports titles accounted for 70 per cent of mobile games represented on carrier decks, despite only taking 30 per cent of actual consumption.

Goode pointed out that this indicated more needed to be done on researching which titles should be placed prominently on the decks, although he did concede that it may be partly due to some other genre titles that significantly over perform, as well as franchise and promotional activity.

The most popular titles for female gamers included quiz games, arcade puzzles and strategy games, while males were more drawn towards sports and shooter titles.

The trend for consolidation in the industry has continued in the past twelve months, with key publishers taking a higher proportion of industry revenues then previously, with EA Mobile, I-Play, Gameloft and Glu Mobile among the top companies by market share.

The Mobile Games Forum 2008, organised by Osney Media, is taking place from January 23-24 at the Sofitel St James hotel in London.