Report: 16 percent of US smartphone owners spend $41 a year on virtual goods

Getting a grip on just who is spending money on mobile virtual goods and why is, undoubtedly, an important part of pitching products at them in the future.

As such, Frank N. Magid Associates and online network OpenFeint have today published a report that sheds some light on in-app purchases, with the findings suggesting 45 percent of the US's reported 70 million strong smartphone userbase now play games on their handsets.

The report, which is the first of a two part study, claims 16 percent of smartphone users across the States spend an average of $41 per year on in-game virtual goods, with the market as a whole already exceeding $168 million.

Moving in on mobile

"The market for virtual goods has already exploded in web-based games like Zynga's FarmVille, and we're just now starting to see this trend in the mobile space," said VP of operations at OpenFeint creator Aurora Feint, Steve Lin.

"In just the last few months we've seen amazing interest from our game developers in building mobile social games with virtual goods.

"Our internal numbers reflect the study in that free-to-play models will be the dominant pricing structure in the future."

As you might expect, the report concludes that the majority of smartphone gamers are male and between the ages of 18 and 34.

Said gamers download an average of 14 games a year, according to the study, with only four paid for.

Bright future?

Of most interest to developers will be where the future purchases are expected to come from, however.

On this score, the report concludes growth potential is likely to come from new smartphone owners, with 60 percent of those questionned claiming they have no intention of changing their purchase habits over the next 12 months.

In contrast, the report states 55 percent of the wider smartphone userbase are interested in virtual goods, suggesting there is plenty of room for growth in the coming years.

On the whole, however, game purchases are expected to remain steady for the next 12 months, at least.