Revenue for mobile games for both Apple and Android devices continues to grow, with great interest in a variety of titles, including the likes of World of Tanks Blitz and Minecraft: Pocket Edition. As such, it appears that spending is also picking up quite a bit as well.

A new report from App Annie and IDC, indicates that spending on mobile games has changed quite a bit over the previous year, in a report dubbed “Portable Gaming Spotlight.”

Within this time frame, Android shows an increase of more than eight percentage points in the combined smartphone and tablet user base, where other devices like BlackBerry and Windows Phone have faltered. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Google is playing such a big part in gaming, as 85 percent of its Google Play store is devoted to games.

While both iOS and Android games saw double-digit increases in revenue over 2013, iOS fell a little bit with its year-over-year share of 75 percent of app revenue. Both the App Store and Google Play have games representing just under half of all downloads.

However, in-game purchases are growing. Over on iOS, they’ve gained more than 70 percent worldwide over the previous year, even more so than Android. It also left handheld systems like the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita in the dust, although both of those machines could catch up with the forthcoming holiday season.

Out of all the games on the market, three dominated with ease — Puzzle & Dragons, Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans. Meanwhile, Game of War and Hay Day followed closely behind on iOS, while Monster Strike and The World of Mystic Wiz rounded out the top five on Android.

So where is the revenue jump coming from IDC researcher Lewis Ward believes it’s all in the hardware. “The revenue increase is mostly driven by the increase in smartphone and tablet ownership worldwide,” Ward said via email. “Sure, monetization in select games is up, but overall gamer ARPU (average revenue per user) on combined smartphones and tablets appears to be trending down marginally in 2014 compared to 2013,” he said.

Don’t be surprised if mobile gaming — and the spending that comes with it — continues to increase in the next year.

Source: Recode.net