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Chart of the Week: Mobile social games to be worth $48 billion by 2016

Digi-Capital plots Asian surge

Chart of the Week: Mobile social games to be worth $48 billion by 2016
There's nothing better to start the year than with some good old predicted numbers.

And investment bank Digi-Capital has provided some.

It reckons the entire games business could be worth $83 billion by 2016, with mobile/social games accounting for 57 percent of this, or $48 billion.

This is because the sector offers high growth levels - more than 100 percent annual - and high profit margins - 20-50 percent. 

Digi-Capital thinks the online/mobile sector is currently worth around $31 billion, or 49 percent of total revenues.



Ring of fiery growth

In terms of investment activity, 2012 was a record with $4 billion spent on mergers and acquisitions.

The leading sector was online PC games, accounting for 38 percent of the total in terms of the average value of a transaction, with mobile in second place at 27 percent

Seven of the ten biggest deals came from Chinese, Korean and Japanese companies; notably GREE, DeNA and Nexon on the mobile side.

Indeed, Digi-Capital points to the region as being the longterm driver of revenues.



It predicts Asia Pacific could account for 66 percent of online and mobile game revenue by 2016, with Europe taking 21 percent.

You can get a free sample of Digi-Capital's report here, as well as purchasing various reports.
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.