Analyst: Gameloft to eclipse EA Mobile

News

Stuart O'Brien Jul 31 2008, 11:34am

Screen Digest reckons French publisher will be top dog in €1.6bn mobile games market.

Market tracker Screen Digest says Gameloft will be rewarded for amassing a huge catalogue and prolific release slate by usurping EA Mobile's market leadership for the rest of 2008 and then retain its position as the top publisher 'for the foreseeable future'.

EA will no doubt have something to say about that, but Screen Digest says the general trend is for the top four publishers to consolidate their dominant positions in the market.

It says EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu and THQ Wireless have seen their global market shares increase from 11 per cent to 22 per cent at the end of 2007, with that figure since rising, especially in Europe.

In fact Screen Digest reckons the global mobile games market will be worth 2.6 billion euros by 2012, up from 1.6 billion euros today.

Historically, Asia has been the biggest market in terms of industry revenues with over 37 per cent market share in 2007, but Screen Digest predicts that from 2009 North America will become the largest market.

North America has been experiencing continued growth, generating an average of 125m euros every year for the past four years. Screen Digest expects this growth to continue and double the market value to just over 1.1bn euros by 2012.