FEATURE: Mobile Market Insights: Advertisers Should Not Ignore Mobile Games

Mobile Market Insights

I'm pleased to introduce a new feature to FierceMobileContent. Every month we will feature analysis from mobile content research firm M:Metrics and its highly specialized analysts including Seamus McAteer, Mark Donovan, John Jackson and others. On the eve of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, this month's column discusses the appeal of ad-supported mobile games. -Sue 

Advertisers Should Not Ignore Mobile Games

By Seamus McAteer

Playing downloaded games on handsets has become a relatively mainstream activity. The portion of subscribers that play downloaded games in a month is similar to the share that uses the browser on their handset. Playing mobile games has broad appeal to college-age and young adults. The substantial appeal of gaming to younger subscribers of both genders along with the growing interest in mobile marketing on the part of operators, agencies and brands points to a potentially attractive market for ad-supported mobile gaming.

Only in France and the U.K. are subscribers significantly more likely to browse the mobile Web than to play a mobile game. The U.K. is the healthiest market for mobile Web browsing with about 14.5 percent of subscribers accessing news or information using this method in a month compared with a healthy 10.6 percent of subscribers who play downloaded games. French subscribers are more than twice as likely to use the browser on their handset but they are not enthused with playing downloaded games, with only 3.5 percent engaging in the activity compared with 7.6 percent who use the phone browser. In Germany, Italy and Spain handset owners are more likely to play a downloaded game in a month than to use mobile Web services. Spain is the strongest market in terms of active mobile gamers with an active player rate of 12.2 percent for downloaded titles.

Playing mobile games is steadily becoming a more gender neutral activity--particularly in U.S. The portion of females in the base of active users has expanded from about 39 percent in early 2005 to about 48 percent at the end of 2006. As it becomes less gender-biased, the market for mobile games increasingly resembles the Web-based casual gaming sector. Only France stands out as a market that is substantially more male than female, reflecting the lower levels of activity overall amongst French subscribers.

In every country the population of mobile gamers is less gender-biased compared with the market for mobile browsing. The female portion of the mobile Web audience ranges from a low of 28.8 percent in Germany to a high of 38.2 percent in Spain. This compares with markets where females represent 46.4 percent and 47 percent of all gamers in Germany and Spain, respectively. 

The median age of mobile gamers is younger compared with other mainstream mobile data activities such as mobile browsing, ringtone purchasing or mobile visual messaging. The median age of mobile gamers ranges from a low of 25 in France to a high of 29 in the U.K. Of the aforementioned mobile data activities, mobile Web browsing has the highest median age in most countries. Germany, which has the smallest audience for mobile browsing, has the oldest age profile for the activity with a median age of 35.5 years for Web browsing. The United States has the youngest Web browsers with a median age of 29.5 years. 

Operators, agencies, advertisers, ad networks and mobile publishers are enamored with the prospects for mobile advertising. Part of the appeal of the mobile medium is the ability to reach the elusive younger consumer in an intimate setting. Most of the investment in the sector is centered on delivering marketing messages via the mobile browser. The fact that paid-for downloaded games achieve an audience reach that rivals that of the Web with a very attractive demographic profile underscores the potential for free or subsidized ad-supported mobile gaming.

Seamus McAteer is the chief product architect and senior analyst at M:Metrics.