PopCap: One third of adults play mobile games each month

More than one third of all adults in the U.S. and the U.K. now play mobile games at least once per month, with almost a quarter playing a mobile title in the last week, according to a new survey conducted by Information Solutions Group on behalf of casual game publisher PopCap. In all, 52 percent of respondents have played a mobile game at some point in their lives--73 percent of U.K. adults have now sampled mobile gaming, compared to 44 percent of their U.S. counterparts. Smartphone owners are by far the most avid mobile gamers, the study finds--93 percent of smartphone users who've embraced mobile gaming say they play at least once each week, and 45 percent play daily. As of a 2009 PopCap/ISG survey, only 13 percent of mobile gamers stated they played daily, and just 50 percent said they played weekly or more often.

Asked to identify which gaming-enabled device they play games on most often, 44 percent of mobile gamers cited their phones, ahead of videogame consoles (21 percent) and computers (30 percent). Moreover, 51 percent of avid mobile gamers (those playing at least once per week) indicate the majority of their gaming activities take place on their phones, and 55 percent of smartphone-owning gamers say they most often play on their handsets as well. A year ago, only 17 percent of mobile gamers named their phone as their go-to gaming device.

Related findings:

• Forty three percent of all mobile gamers and 49 percent of smartphone gamers said they had upgraded a free trial game to the premium version in the past year
• Among mobile phone gamers, the average smartphone owner purchased an average of 5.4 games in 2010, nearly twice as many games as feature phone users (2.9 games). In addition, smartphone users spent almost $10 more ($25.57 vs. $15.70) on mobile games than their counterparts.
• Nineteen percent of all mobile phone gamers indicate playing one or more social networking games via their phone daily, and 37 percent play a social networking game on their phone at least once a week.

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