Capcom Highlight Trends In The Mobile Phone Game Market

According to a report published by market research firm, Gartner Dataquest, the global mobile phone games market was worth 4.72 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, up 15.5% over the previous year.

This information comes by way of Capcom, who co-opted the data into a larger report focusing on the games industry as a whole. According to Capcom, the mobile phone market now encompasses a gigantic 546 million people willing to play videogames on their cell phones, thanks in no small part to the advent of the iPhone. This number is up an impressive 85.8% from 2008.

The largest audience for mobile phone games is currently the Asia-Pacific market (including Japan), worth $1.81 billion. Following Asia is the European market at 1.68 billion, and North America at 1.13 billion. While Asia is presently the largest market in terms of revenue, this number actually dropped 6.1% over the previous year due to a decline of users in Japan.

In the past, Capcom have expressed interest in expanding mobile phone operations in Korea to help offset the effects of the decline in Japan.

The company believes that smartphone users are expected to represent 38% of global mobile phone sales by 2013, and that this will allow them to appeal to a wider demographic encompassing both light users to core gamers. The global market for mobile phone content is expected to be worth 11.42 billion dollars by 2014.

Chart sourced from Capcom and Gartner Dataquest.