Mobile game revenue may soon outpace that seen in console gaming

Mobile games is a booming market. Many large developers and publishers have begun to focus on the mobile space, looking to take advantage of the growing number of mobile consumers willing to play and pay for games on their smartphones and tablets. In Canada, many consumers are beginning to play mobile games and the market is expected to see significant growth in the coming years, even outpacing the growth of the console gaming market.

Developers are beginning to see the value in mobile games

According to a new report from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, the revenue generated by mobile games may soon outpace the sale of console games. Mobile games typically feature in-game purchases. These purchases can be anything from additional content to special items that provide some advantage in the game. While developers have been looking to bring these types of purchases to console games, they have already become well established in mobile gaming. Consumers have shown that they are quite willing to pay for content and other benefits in mobile games.

Report shows that mobile game revenue is growing quickly

According to the report from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, console games remain the bulk of the overall gaming market. These games account for 35% of all revenue that Canadian developers are seeing. Mobile games, however, are growing quickly and now account for 31% of all revenue that developers see in the country. Notably, mobile games have continued growing, whereas console games have seen a 32% decline since 2013.

Developers are looking to enter the mobile space and engage consumers

With mobile gaming picking up momentum, more developers are beginning to show more interest in the mobile sector. Recently, acclaimed developer Konami decided that it will be focusing on mobile gaming. Activision Blizzard is also looking to become more involved in the mobile space, recently purchasing mobile game developer King for nearly $6 billion. Developers are looking to engage mobile consumers more effectively, as these consumers have shown that they are willing to pay for the mobile games that they play.

This trend is heading around the world as Diwali shopping in India broke mobile records.

While the holiday shopping season is only just getting started in the United States, India has already had a major wave of its own m-commerce season as Diwali brought a tremendous number of shoppers to their device screens to pick up that perfect gift.

According to UCWeb, the holiday shopping traffic across India broke the 75.5 percent mark this year.

UCWeb is the company behind the top mobile browser used in India, as it holds onto a market share that is greater than 54 percent in that country. This makes that company uniquely able to understand the increases that are being seen in m-commerce activities throughout the year and at times of holiday shopping such as during Diwali.

According to the company’s managing director in India, Kenny Ye, “The numbers of users who visit Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal via UC Browser in the month leading up to Diwali 2015 increased over 75 percent compared with last year.”

People in India are steadily increasing their use of m-commerce, particularly during festive seasons.

Ye went on to explain that consumers in India are “embracing shopping on the go” to a growing degree. They are finding that there is a great deal of opportunity available to take advantage of the time they have while they commute or on lunch breaks, for example, in order to pick up the gifts they need for festive celebrations. It helps them to save time and to be able to find some great ways to save money on what they want to buy.

That said, this use of mobile commerce for Diwali in India has been met with some resistance in that many people are saying that it is pushing people to think of this important time on the calendar in an exclusively commercial sense, when it is supposed to mean a great deal more.

This closely mirrors the sentiment of many people who will be using m-commerce to help them to get ahead in their Christmas shopping during the holiday season in the United States. It will be interesting to see what other trends follow the same paths between the two countries and their top gift giving holidays.