Mobile Games Sales Are Up, iPhone and Android Popular, Says Multimedia Research Consultancy

By Reporter Wireless and Mobile News on March 12, 2009 11:32 AM

Results from the Multimedia Research Consultancy's (TMRC) first online survey of mobile games industry experts The iPhone is a winner of support.

The participating organizations report current mobile games sales up on a year ago (43 per cent say sales are up vs. 29 per cent saying they are down).

However, despite the economic downturn and this moderately good result they are very positive about 2009, not only for their own organization's sales prospects, but also for the industry as a whole. 66 per cent anticipate that the value of their enterprise's mobile games sales will rise in the next 12 months, with only 11 per cent expecting a decline.

The iPhone is already rated as the most successful Development Platform/Operating System (DP/OS) by 71 per cent of our experts. When the experts looked into the future, they expected the iPhone to get stronger, possibly precipitating the demise of several existing platforms.

Google's Android, which, according to respondents, is expected to make substantial advances in the market place over the next two years. In fact both the iPhone and Android are predicted to become long term forces in the mobile games industry.

Storing up trouble for its rivals

At the same time Apple's App Store is seen overwhelmingly by the majority of our experts (77 per cent) as having "revolutionized the way that mobile games are sold" - with the strong likelihood of this development threatening existing distribution patterns.

Vic Whiting, MD "We have long observed that the mobile games industry has not been short on individuals prepared to give their views on the wide range of issues challenging this space, either online, in print or at conferences. Well, the Mobile Games Industry Experts Panel is now able to give these opinions statistical solidity and reliability by measuring the industry sentiment of a large number of experts. A report based on the results from the 1st Survey is now available and anyone in this industry trying to effectively orientate their business strategy would find it invaluable".

The report, which also covers reactions to the Credit Crunch and other industry issues, is available for sale from The Multimedia Research Consultancy. More details can be found at http://www.multimedia-research.com/

Survey - Technical Details:

The survey was carried out in January & February 2009 amongst 147 executives from 136 mobile games enterprises in 38 countries. 73% were involved in development, 39% in publishing, 21% in content aggregation, 23% in distribution and 27% in running portals. 85% of respondents were CEOs, MDs, Presidents, Directors, SVPs, VPs, EVPs, COOs, CTOs or Studio Heads.