Over 90% of mobile game revenues generated by in-app purchases

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The U.S. mobile gaming market has grown considerably, from 75 million to 101 million mobile gamers. Of those 101 million, 69% play games on smartphones, with 21% gaming on a tablet.

The vast majority of games being played aren’t being paid for upfront but are instead relying on micro-transactions from within the game.

A whopping 91% of revenues from both Android and iOS games in the U.S. come from micro-transactions made within games as opposed to a one-off fee for downloading, according to Newzoo.

Their study of 17,000 mobile gamers found that in-game revenues were higher in the U.S. than in Europe where in-app purchases account for 73% in Germany and 87% in France.

In the U.S. iOS games were found to generate around five times more revenues than those on Android. In March this year, among the 200 top-grossing games at both Google Play and the App Store combined, 84% of revenues were attributed to iOS games.

“When analyzing Apple’s successful monetization, there is one dominant factor outside of differences in audience demographics and preferences: Apple requires users to connect their credit card information directly to their account, thus creating a seamless purchase experience,” said Peter Warman, CEO at Newzoo.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kristina Knight-1
Kristina Knight, Journalist , BA
Content Writer & Editor
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Kristina Knight is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience writing on varied topics. Kristina’s focus for the past 10 years has been the small business, online marketing, and banking sectors, however, she keeps things interesting by writing about her experiences as an adoptive mom, parenting, and education issues. Kristina’s work has appeared with BizReport.com, NBC News, Soaps.com, DisasterNewsNetwork, and many more publications.