Mobile-game market to boom, study says

The U.S. mobile-game industry will leap to annual revenue of $1.8 billion by 2009, according to a new study from market research company In-Stat/MDR.

By then, games will account for about 4 percent of total wireless-data revenue in the United States, the study said.

In-Stat/MDR projected that as many as 78.6 million people will be playing mobile games by 2009, and game downloads will have increased more than tenfold from 2003 levels. Right now, about 6.5 percent of wireless subscribers in the United States are "extremely" or "very interested" in purchasing portable game services.

Game giants such as Sony and Nintendo are already battling it out to corner this market. In addition, there are many smaller players, such as Jamdat Mobile, that publish games for mobile phones.

In-Stat/MDR found that mobile gamers spend an average of 5.1 hours every week playing games on devices such as PCs, game consoles and handhelds.

The study also said that the typical mobile gamer is younger and more likely to be male than the general wireless subscriber. Mobile gamers are also likely to be owners of handsets with color displays, camera functionality and multimedia capabilities.

"Mobile gaming has come a long way since 'Snake' was first deployed on wireless handsets in 1997," Clint Wheelock, In-Stat/MDR's director of wireless research, said in a release.

"This level of interest clearly identifies mobile gaming as a niche opportunity for wireless carriers, application developers and content producers," he said.