More than one in five Americans – 64 million people – play games on their mobile devices at least once per month, and the number is set to rise. eMarketer predicts the number of U.S. mobile gamers to reach 94.9 million by 2014.

This 94.9 million figure excludes the number of mobile users who play games that are pre-installed on their phones. While it includes feature phone users, eMarketer expects smartphone users to ultimately account for most mobile gamers. comScore data indicates that smartphone gamers already make up 42 percent of all mobile game players.

eMarketer forecasts revenues from mobile gaming to reach $849 million in 2010, with $55.5 million coming from ad sales (6.5 percent) and $793.4 million (93.5 percent) from paid downloads. eMarketer expects mobile gaming revenues to exceed $1.5 billion in 2014.

Advertising revenues will increase over this time frame, to constitute 12.3 percent of industry revenues, but most money will come from sales to consumers.

While mobile gaming is set to grow, mobile revenues are still just a fraction of video game revenues overall. Research from TNS and Newzoo indicates that mobile gaming revenues made up just 4 percent of industry revenues in 2009.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 8:45 am and is filed under Market Research, Mobile Marketing, News and Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.