Mobile Games Earned $40 Billion In 2016, Same As Global Box Office Sales

In 2016 the mobile games market earned $40.6 billion, the same amount as global box office sales—the first factoid in SuperData's 2016 Mobile Games Report. A proper summary is, "mobile is killing it."

Remember, this was the year Pokemon GO released and generated a billion on its own since launch. And big dogs like Nintendo, with Super Mario Run, and Activision Blizzard's acquisition of King, and Tencents purchase of SuperCell, means the titans of the industry are joining the fray. 2017 ought to be interesting.

The biggest surprise to me is that in 2016 United States mobile users spent more time playing mobile games than they did watching Hulu, YouTube, or Netflix. It follows that mobile engagement grew 19% year over year, "mobile gamers logged on in Q4 2016 an average of three times a day, spending 10 minutes playing each time."

In total Asia makes up the largest chunk of the mobile market, generating $24.8 billion, in large part thanks to China's 1 billion mobile players. But Korea and Japan are also willing to open their wallets: "Koreans spent almost $60 in an average month while Japanese spenders shelled out $70."

"The U.S. is the only country with more players on iOS than Android."

And how is mobile VR doing? In total VR made 1.8 billion, and Samsung Gear VR led the charge with 4.5 million devices sold. Makes sense. It's far cheaper to enter virtual reality with a mobile device. Here's a shocking stat, to me at least, an average mobile VR session was equivalent with a typical gaming session. The average mobile VR owner uses their device far more than I've used my Rift.

You can view the full PDF report for free, there's plenty of interesting data.