Alistair Hill dishes the numbers at Mobile Games Forum.
Alistair Hill from comScore took the stage at today's Mobile Games Forum conference in London, to present the company's latest research on the mobile gaming market - including apps and advertising.
Mobile media
He started by comparing the European and US markets, claiming that 35% of US consumers are classed as 'mobile media users' - they've browsed the web from their phone, downloaded an app etc. In Europe, the figure is 27%.
However, Europeans are keener on SMS - 58% of us use it (which actually seems quite low), compared to 31% in the US.
Why? It's all about penetration of 3G smartphoens backed with unlimited data tariffs - and 21% of the US market has the latter, compared to just 5% in Europe. "In Europe we're still struggling a little bit at pushing this out," explained Hill.
Article continues belowAdvertisement
In 2006, mobile media usage was around 26% in both territories, but that dropped in 2007 as people got stung by big data charges, whereas the US has climbed steadily to 35% usage.
More on mobile media users in Europe: the median age is around 33, and 40% of them are female. However, for mobile games, it's an even split between males and females, with 31 the median age for people who buy games.
Hill also talked about the way younger users are creating their own ringtones, using social networking services and listening to music - "Web 2.0 services" said Hill.
iPhone accounts for 9% of all mobile media users in Europe - well, the main five European markets ('EU5') covered by comScore's research. 20% of handsets account for 79% of mobile media users.
Interestingly, Nokia's 5800 Xpress Music was the most popular device for mobile media usage in the EU5 countries with 34%, compared to iPhone's 9%.
He went on to talk about the importance of mobile social networking to the mobile media industry. "Social networking is the driving force behind getting people to use mobile media," said Hill, revealing that Facebook mobile users spend on averge 24 minutes on Facebook a day, split between 3.3 visits - compared to 27.5 minutes for PC users of Facebook in 2.3 visits.
"Facebook is a massive proportion of mobile internet behaviour," he said, referring to as-yet unreleased stats from comScore and the mobile operators. "Absolutely huge."
Mobile games
Hill went on to discuss the mobile games industry, which he described as "yes, fairly flat, but it's flat-rising..."
The number of people downloading a game has grown 23% year-on-year in Europe, although the number of people BUYING a game has stayed relatively flat. The number of people downloading free games has grown by 30%.
Hill also outlined the link between length of device ownership and games buying - 5% of people buy a game when they have a new device, dropping to 1% if they've owned it for more than 18 months. Which explains why Christmas is such a boom time for mobile games downloads.
"16% of people who have a new iPhone purchase a game, though," said Hill. What's more, this doesn't drop off - 13% of people who've owned an iPhone for more than 18 months still buy games.
"As more devices which come in which have similar characteristics and types of software, namely Android, these things can work together for the mobile games industry to increase the total revenue," said Hill.
Demographic profiles
Hill explained that there are still two rough demographics that buy mobile games - one fairly mixed audience that buys casual games (card, quiz, retro arcade, word etc), and another that buys more hardcore games, who tend to be younger and more male.
Apple and Nokia dominate mobile games purchasers according to comScore's European research - both have a 25% share of the market for mobile games purchasers. In the US, Apple has 27%.
The top four handsets for mobile games purchases in Europe are all iPhones - the 8GB 3G, 16GB 3G, 16GB 3GS and 32GB 3GS in that order. Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic comes in fifth.
Hill also talked download stats, claiming that Facebook is the most downloaded iPhone app in the US, but Shazam is the most downloaded in Europe. And in the UK specifically it's Carling's iPint. A stat to make you feel proud. Possibly.
Hill also listed the top paid iPhone games in the five main European markets. The top five of all-time are:
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D (Vivendi)
Texas Hold'em (Apple)
Flick Fishing (Freeverse)
Cro-Mag Rally (Pangea)
Super Monkey Ball (Sega)
(All App Store launch titles, you may note).
"The average person in the Eurozone downloads 21 apps over the lifetime of their iPhone, and 11 games - although that's paid and free downloads," said Hill.
Mobile advertising
Finally, Hill talked about mobile advertising, revealing that according to comScore's research, EA was the largest advertiser on the mobile internet in the UK in November last year.
And mobile games is currently the second largest sector for mobile advertising in the UK - as in games companies spending on advertising.
"There's an incredible amount of activity from the games sector in terms of moving somebody from one mobile internet site to somewhere they can purchase a game," said Hill.
He also talked about the potential of advertising as a revenue stream for mobile games companies. He suggested that more than 60% of 18-34 year-old males in the UK are using mobile media, making mobile banner ads a good way to interact with this demographic.
"Brands are really starting to come on board with this," he said, citing banner campaigns from the likes of Churchill Insurance, Direct Line and Natwest.
Hill also responded to this morning's Gartner research report claiming that Apple's App Store accounted for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads in 2009.
"I think somebody's missed something out on the maths there," he said. "I find that hard to believe. We know iPhone users buy a lot more apps than anybody else, but that [the Gartner claims] still doesn't work."
Hill also suggested that BlackBerry users "buy more games than the average person" in response to a question about RIM's platform.
