Wednesday, 13 July 2016

Nigeria’s mobile gaming market forecast to hit $147m


Going by the new insights into the mobile gaming market in Nigeria, the sector is projected to hit about $147 million by 2019.According to a report by PwC, a research based firm, the Nigerian market is dominated by social/casual gaming, eclipsing fledgling revenues on more expensive devices like consoles and Personal Computers (PCs).


It disclosed that the mobile gaming market has flourished and in 2014, with social/casual gaming revenue accounting for 7.7 per cent of total video game revenue at $70 million.
According to PwC, this will increase further to $147 million in 2019, at a CAGR of 16.1 per cent. “At this time, social/casual games will comprise 8.4 per cent of total video game revenue in Nigeria, driven by greater ownership of mobile devices than of consoles and PCs. Video game advertising revenue remains non-existent in this market.”
Optimistic developers like Co-Founder, ChopUp, Zubair Abubakar, implored the Federal Government and investors to invest in the Nigerian gaming industry as the future potential revenues as Smartphone penetration grows (forecast to rise from 16 per cent to 42 per cent from 2014 to 2019) and the younger population (more than 50 per cent of whom are under 25 years old) warms to new styles gaming.
Furthermore, according to a NewZoo report, which was made available at the NITEC 2016 conference in Lagos, disclosed that globally, mobile gaming will take 37 per cent, about $36.9 billion from the global revenue, up 8.5 per cent compared to 2015 than PC in 2016. The mobile tools consist of smartphones and tablet devices.
The report showed that for the first time, mobile gaming will take a larger share than PC/MMO, which is projected to see 27 per cent penetration, about $27.1billion; TV console 29 per cent; $29 billion, Casual Web games five per cent, $5.2billion and Handheld two per cent; $1.8 billion.
The report stated that the Floating Screen (tablets and handheld consoles) remained the least important gaming screen as handheld revenues are expected to plummet another 24 per cent this year due to the rapid decline of handheld console revenue and the popularity of large screen Smartphones which cater to high-end mobile games have dented spending on tablet games, thereby making tablet revenue growth lower than originally anticipated; the Computer Screen as the most lucrative on a global scale as the vast majority of this will be from (mid)core PC/MMO games; casual webgame revenues continue to decline; the Entertainment Screen (TV/Console) will grow to $29.0 billion; the Personal Screen, or Smartphones as the fastest growing with a YoY growth rate of 23.7 per cent and by 2018 will take the lead globally.
On Virtual Reality (VR), the report expects game software revenues from VR to remain marginal for the near future and to largely substitute other game spending on console, PC and mobile as the uptake of VR hardware plays out, game software revenues will automatically be absorbed into current PC, TV/console and mobile revenues.
VR and AR will in the long-term change how consumers communicate with each other and interact with content.In the short to medium term, Newzoo expects the lion’s share of VR revenues to be generated by hardware sales, spectator content, and live viewing formats.
From the report, Asian-pacific countries (APAC) will dominate worldwide revenue accounting for $46.6 billion this year, or 47 per cent of total global game with China accounting for one quarter of all global game revenues reaching $24.4 billion this year to cement its place as the largest games market in the world, ahead of the US’s anticipated market size of $23.5 billion.
North America is the second largest region with estimated revenues of $25.4 billion in 2016, a YoY growth rate of 4.1 per cent. The mobile segment mainly drives this growth.
Console revenues remain stable as the segment moves toward digital and continuous monetization; Europe, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA) own a market share of $23.5billion, 7.3 per cent YoY as Western Europe will see a slightly higher growth rate of +4.4 per cent which can be mainly attributed to the fact that the region has seen slower adoption of mobile gaming to date and Eastern Europe, meanwhile, will even grow a bit more, from the past year’s crisis with a 7.3 per cent YoY growth rate; Latin America will see healthy growth again, reaching $4.1 billion in 2016, an impressive 20.1 per cent YoY increase. Mobile games will generate $1.4 billion.

(Guardian)

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