Of all American mobile gamers, 19 million play on an iPhone, which is 28% of all smartphone gamers, according to new data from NewZoo (http://www.newzoo.com), an international market research firm focused purely on the games industry.
An additional 18 million plays games on an iPod touch. In the tablet gaming space, the iPad is dominant with a share of 60%, or 12.7 million Americans.
NewZoo says Apple’s position is strongest when it comes to revenues. In March, all iOS devices combined earned 84% of mobile revenues generated by the top 200 grossing games in the three stores combined: iPad, iPhone/iPod App Store and Google PlayStore. For both Android and iOS devices, the majority of money is not spent on downloading games but within the games: an astonishing 91% for Android and 91% for iOS games.
“When analyzing Apple’s successful monetization, there is one dominant factor outside of differences in audience demographics and preferences: Apple requires users to connect their credit card information directly to their account, thus creating a seamless purchase experience,” says NewZoo CEO Peter Warman. “I can hardly imagine any other company in the world that would be able to get away with this, including Google and Microsoft. Facebook can come a long way, but Amazon clearly has the best chance and is proving this as we speak.”