Mobile gaming continues to rise as more consumers use smartphones for entertainment, according to a new eMarketer report titled Growing Number of Smartphone Users Is Driving Mobile Gaming Consumption.
More than two thirds of mobile phone users (about 56 percent of the overall U.S. population) play games on their phone at least once a month over the course of this year, eMarketer says. That comes out to an estimated 180.4 million people, which is a 9.4 percent increase over the 164.9 million from the previous year.
That growth is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The report suggests that, by 2020, we’ll see a rise to 213 million mobile gamers. That will be 77 percent of overall phone users and nearly 64 percent of the overall population.
As for tablets, an estimated 120 million people (roughly 72.5 percent of users) play games on one of these devices at least once a month. That’s expected to increase to 140.3 million by 2020, which covers over three-quarters of all tablet users.
The report also tracks online console gamers, who are no doubt enjoying games like Tom Clancy’s The Division and Call of Duty: Black Ops III right now. Their numbers are a bit smaller, with only about 19.4 of Internet users partaking in games like these. That number will remain steady over the next few years, peaking only by a 1 percentage point by 2020. This is mainly due to the lack of console releases, audience maturity and the growing popularity of mobile gaming.
NOTE: A subscription to eMarketer’s Total Access program is required to see the full report.
