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199 million-strong, southeast Asian mobile game market outnumbers PC

Over 20 million more gaming on mobile than PC

199 million-strong, southeast Asian mobile game market outnumbers PC

Niko Partners has put together a comprehensive report and five-year forecast of the southeast Asian games market, which states those playing mobile games in the region now outnumber those playing online PC games.

The figures, according to this report, now stand at 119 million mobile gamers in the region, with 97 million playing online PC games.

But perhaps the most telling revelation is that there is also a significant crossover between these two groups.

Whereas, in the company's 2013 study, 25 percent of hardcore online gamers claimed not to play mobile games, this year that figure has dramatically dropped to a mere 7 percent.

Eastern promise

The area covered by this report comprises six countries: Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. A pretty large area, then, and a region ripe for mobile games industry growth.

Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners, was quick to address comparisons with the Chinese market, and to discuss the region's potential.

"The southeast Asian games market is often compared to that of China, and we can see that it is following behind China by a few years," she said.

However, southeast Asians are said to "shy away" from genres like MMORPGs, which traditionally generate a lot of revenue and are still popular in China.

"Therefore the challenge to developers is to compel an increase in the level of spending on the type of games for which southeast Asians have shown enthusiasm," she added.

Niko surveyed approximately 10,000 gamers, most of whom were young, male, hardcore enthusiasts who play client-based PC online games.

[source: Niko Partners]


Features Editor

Matt is really bad at playing games, but hopefully a little better at writing about them. He's Features Editor for PocketGamer.biz, and has also written for lesser publications such as IGN, VICE, and Paste Magazine.