Report: U.S. Mobile Game Buying Surges In Q1

According to a Telephia-conducted report that analyzed the bills of nearly 35,000 mobile consumers in North America, mobile video game sales continue to show strong performance during the first quarter of 2006, with wireless consumers buying more than 8.2 million games on their phones in March, up 53 percent from 5.4 million in January 2006. The number of unique mobile game buyers also jumped significantly, surging 44 percent from nearly 3.5 million in January to five million in March. The Telephia Mobile Game Report shows that EA Mobile, I-Play, Gameloft, Namco, Hands-On Mobile, Glu Mobile, THQ Wireless, Oasys Mobile, Sony Pictures Mobile, and Mobliss were the top 10 revenue generators, accounting for 75 percent of mobile game industry revenue. EA Mobile led the way with an impressive 30% of overall market revenue, followed by I-Play (8.2%), Gameloft (8.0%), Namco (7.7%), Hands-On Mobile (6.2%), and Glu (5.3%). Telephia's Q1 2006 Mobile Game Report ranks Tetris (5.2%), Tetris Deluxe (3.6%), Bejeweled (2.6%), Jamdat Mahjong (2.2%), and Ms. Pac-Man (2.0%) as the top five mobile game titles in terms of revenue share. "The true measure of performance for a publisher or a game title is the revenue it drives from purchases," said Kanishka Agarwal, Vice President of New Products, Telephia. "Measuring the industry's performance based on downloads alone is irresponsible and misleading, especially given the extent of free trials in this rapidly growing industry." He continued: "During the first quarter of the year, nearly 12 percent of all game downloads were free, with extreme variability from one publisher to another. For example, 49 percent of Glu Mobile's downloads were free of charge, while Hands-On Mobile had less than one percent of its downloads for free," added Agarwal.