Mobile gaming is set to register a strong growth in India while there is forecast it would surpass USD 1.8 billion in 2007 and reach USD 4.6 billion in 2011.
MUMBAI: Mobile gaming is set to register a strong growth in India even as telecoms are betting big on value added services to increase revenues.
While India and China are expected to bolster growth in the mobile gaming sector, revenues from this mobile entertainment in Asia-Pacific region and Japan are forecast to surpass USD 1.8 billion in 2007 and reach USD 4.6 billion in 2011, said information and technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
"Even though prices for mobile games are often higher than other forms of mobile entertainment, such as music, ringtones and some adult content, mobile gaming will often be the only choice in many emerging markets because less money is needed to start mobile gaming than to buy a PC or games console."
"Analysts expect high-growth markets such as China and India to bolster mobile gaming growth even further. Regional differences will play a significant role in adoption rates for mobile gaming," Gartner said on Tuesday.
"One of the factors driving mobile gaming in developed markets is availability of faster processors in mobile devices, which enable faster response times, 3-D graphics and advanced sound capabilities", according to Nick Ingelbrecht, Research director at Gartner.
"The high revenue correlates with higher data consumption in countries such as South Korea and Japan and reflects the bigger appetite for mobile gaming in this region," Gartner added.
Meanwhile, as interest grows and publishers release more content "worldwide mobile gaming end-user revenue will grow from USD 2.9 billion in 2006 to USD 9.6 billion in 2011, an increase of 49.9 per cent", Gartner said.
"In game-hungry markets like Australia, we estimate that about 10 per cent of mobile Internet users are regular gamers (comprising an enthusiastic subset of cellular users)."
"The percentage will grow as advanced device functionality spreads through the product tiers to support a richer gaming experience," Ingelbrecht said.
"In Western Europe, mobile gaming end-user revenue is projected to grow from USD 1.5 billion in 2007 to USD 2 billion in 2011."
In Gartner's survey among Western European consumers, published in 2006, 10 per cent of those surveyed said they had used mobile online gaming and had downloaded games at least once a month.
However, only two percent of their mobile data service spending was on gaming.
There are differences in the types of games that sell well in Europe.
Germans downloaded more strategy and quiz games, whereas the British were more interested in sports and puzzle games.
As much as Four-fifths of people who downloaded games in Europe prefer to do so from their operator's portal.
Operators faced competition from off-portal entrants in 2002. But since 2004, more users have returned to downloading games from their own operator's portal, Gartner said
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