Orange claims lead in UK mobile games market
New research from ELSPA and Chart-Track claims that Orange is the leading UK operator for mobile gaming, accounting for 23 per cent of downloads and 25 per cent of revenues.
Which begs two questions: 23 per cent of what, and 25 per cent of how much? Of course, that information isn't being released, while Orange's announcement of the results doesn't give the equivalent percentages for its rivals.
However, there is one interesting stat: more than 30 per cent of Orange's mobile games revenues are coming from demos embedded on its signature handsets, including Sony Ericsson's W910i and Samsung's F480.
"Were delighted with taking the top spot for mobile gaming in 2008 and are already making great strides to make sure we stay there in 2009," says Orange's games boss Neil Holroyd.
"Were making more enhancements to our embedded games, and giving our Orange World gaming channel a new look and feel - customers can look forward to a slicker experience and improved graphics."
Presumably he's referring to the Orange Application Shop, which is launching first in France before rolling out to the UK.
This kind of research is all well and good, but we can't help thinking that operators squabbling over market share is... not quite irrelevant, but arguably not that useful without more data.
How do the UK operators' sales compare with those on iPhone, N-Gage and Android? How do they compare with off-portal channels, or crucially, with the scale of illegal downloads? And how fast are the operators' games sales growing (or shrinking)?
Perhaps ELSPA can find out and publish some of this information in its next piece of research.
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