Report: Mobile gaming leaders widen sales gap

The world's four leading games publishers--EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu and THQ Wireless--are claiming an ever-growing share of the mobile gaming market, vaulting from 11 percent global marketshare to 22 percent in 2007, according to media analyst Screen Digest, which adds the figure is still rising, especially in Western Europe. Screen Digest forecasts Gameloft will usurp current market leader EA Mobile during the remainder of 2008, arguing that in the first quarter Gameloft earned $40 million, only $1 million behind EA; the report adds that mobile gaming will reach a total market value of $4.1 billion by 2012, with North America emerging as the largest market by 2009.

Screen Digest also cites Apple's iPhone 3G as a potential tipping point for mobile gaming, noting that 10 million applications were downloaded from Apple's App Store within three days of the device's July 11 retail debut--at the same time, the report notes the iPhone 3G poses new technical challenges for developers, effectively restricting the sophistication of games created for the platform which in turn hampers audience retention.

For more on the Screen Digest report:
- read this release

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