Global & Australian gaming market trends – mobile, cloud and 5G to drive growth
Mobile gaming is now the dominant driver in the global gaming market accounting for more revenue than console and PC combined and the majority of all growth. This shift has been enabled by improvements to internet infrastructure, from stronger mobile networks to faster wireline bandwidth to better cloud-based delivery models; however, there hasn’t been a significant amount of direct monetisation by telcos, as they have only dipped their toes, at best, into this new source of demand.
Key Takeaways
The Australian gaming market accounts for A$4bn in revenues and grew by 25% in 2018. Within this, mobile gaming accounts for A$1.2bn and is growing at about 11% pa. Comparatively, the global gaming market projected at US$167bn is expected to grow at 5% CAGR between 2018-22 with mobile gaming growing at 10% CAGR.
66% of consumers play games on their smartphones, based on Venture Insights’ and Altman Vilandrie & Company’s analysis, which includes a consumer survey of gaming habits in Australia, US, UK, China and Japan.
Mobile gaming usage is increasing in Australia - almost 75% of respondents said they spent more or the same time playing mobile games vs. a year ago, with more 33% spending more than 30 minutes a day.
Globally, gamers are playing online and on-the-go. Across US, UK, China and Japan, 60% of gamers play games while commuting or travelling. Australians on the other hand chose ‘Home’ (80%) as the most frequently used location for playing games on their smartphone, following by playing on the go (50%).
Gamers are waiting on AR/VR with only 44% of gamers (36% excluding China) having played AR/VR games. The main hurdles to adoption are expensive hardware and the early stage of the technology.
72% of gamers in the US, UK, China and Japan stated that they would be willing to play games provided by a non-traditional provider. This augurs well for recently launched cloud gaming platforms like Google Stadia, Apple Arcade and even telcos.
About 30% of gamers in Australia are willing to pay more for 5G. Just like they have with video and sports content, we could see telcos offer zero rated gaming plans – in February 2019, Vodafone Germany launched a €5 a month zero rated data gaming pass.
This article was first published by Venture Insights and can be found if you click here