Apple's iPhone and mobile partner O2 led the way in getting mobile gamers to pay for games in 2009 a new survey reveals.
Data from the mobile section of the UK National Gamers Survey Report conducted by TNS and Gamesindustry.com, revealed that 3.8 million people played games on mobile phones and spent a total of 170m in 2009.
Apple had about 700,000 mobile gamers with an impressive 85 per cent paying for games via the iTunes App Store. O2, previously Apple's exclusive UK partner, had 2,400, 000 gamers with 67 per cent paying for games.
According to the report, market leaders in terms of number of mobile gamers, Nokia and Sony Ericsson had 38 per cent paying players, identical to operator Vodafone.
Three quarters of paying mobile gamers had a contract opposed to using prepaid cards. For all mobile gamers this is more equal - 57 per cent on contract, 43 per cent using prepaid - the survey suggests.
The new report found just 14 per cent of UK mobile gamers play daily. This goes up to 18 per cent for people who have paid for games.
Between 15 and 60 minutes of game play was typical of the average player. Popular types of games include puzzles, strategy, racing and arcade games.
Arcade games and puzzles are clearly most popular with non-paying gamers the report found, with several coming pre-installed with handsets.
41 per cent of all mobile gamers has played more than 3 different games in the last 6 months. 16 per cent of paying mobile gamers, 600,000 people in absolute numbers, can be seen as the heavy users playing more than 25 different games in a 6 months period the report suggests.
(Data for the 2009 Today’s Gamers International Survey edition was collected from a total of 13,000 respondents, selected to represent the nations demographic profile. The interviews were conducted online, therefore the results represent the population with internet access. Other topics in the survey include full breakdowns by demographic, general interest, buying intent, media consumption, local media channel preferences, motivation to play, payment methods, digital distribution, number of games played, game platform selection, most appreciated features, and betting/gambling participation.)
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