Sales of mobile games totaled $500 million in 2006 in the U.S., representing revenue growth of 30 percent to 40 percent, says M-Metrics.
Cingular and T-Mobile expanded the depth of their catalogs considerably this year. M:Metrics counted 36 publishers with ten or more titles on decks. Publishers, operators and others in the mobile gaming sector use a number of measures to track performance of competing content providers.
The table (above) shows various measures for mobile games publishers for the month of November 2006 for the top ten publishers in terms of placement on operator decks. Percent of Appearances measures the relative number of slots on the premium portion of the deck assigned to titles. Percent of Weighted Appearances assigns a weighting value to these slots based on how crowded the deck is; such as the appearance of the sub-menu above or below the fold.
Each month, M:Metrics derive estimates for new purchases of game titles from their survey of about 12,000 mobile subscribers aged 13 and higher in the United States.
Half of all U.S. wireless subscribers now own phones capable of downloading games. A full 27 percent play games on those devices, including purchased downloads as well as free demos and pre-loaded games, compared to 20 percent last year. Smartphone users spent an average of $6.31 per month for wireless data in the third quarter. By comparison, owners of all types of mobile phones spent just $0.89.
The in-game advertising market is projected to reach $732 million by 2010, up from $56 million in 2005 and $34 million in 2004. Games will account for about 4 percent of total wireless-data revenue in the United States, says In-Stat.
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