Asia-Pacific mobile gaming sector seen to grow 20%

The mobile online gaming market in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, is expected to expand by a compounded annual growth rate of 20 percent over the next five years, research firm International Data Corp. (IDC) said.

In its latest research, IDC noted that that the mobile online gaming market in the region grew 35 percent in 2007, which was one percent lower than IDC’s previous forecast, as growth in Hong Kong, China and Malaysia came in softer than expected.

There were around 97.6 million mobile online gamers in selected countries in the region, which China accounting for 51.3 percent and Korea, 25.3 percent.

IDC Asia-Pacific software research market analyst Poon Wei Ang pointed out that while the market will continue growing, the development of mobile online gaming in the region will remain fragmented as rich multimedia content relies a lot on the mobile infrastructure of the country.

He said although many users have begun to utilize their handsets for rich multimedia and gaming experience, the acceptance and availability of 3G and HSDPA in certain countries across the region has yet to take off.

“While China and India continue to work on the provision of 3G services, the mature markets will be focusing on the available 3G services to churn out multimedia-rich content,” he explained.

Looking forward, content developers and operators in the region will likely face challenges in most countries in the region as mobile online gaming is still in its nascent stage, the IDC report emphasized.

Nevertheless, as the mobile network coverage and the ability of high speed data connection for mobile phones begin to stabilize, and more mobile content becomes available, IDC said it expects to see a steady growth of mobile online gamers in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore by 2012.

Meanwhile, in another report, IDC said it expects shipments of converged mobile devices (CMDs) to grow from 10.5 million in 2007 to 51.7 million in 2012.

“Despite the increasing trend toward corporate liability, particularly in the United States, the growing adoption of CMDs by consumers, the burgeoning awareness of the productivity advantages of mobile data access, and the inability of many smaller businesses to afford massive wireless deployments will contribute toward growth in individual-liable business devices in the SMB,” according to Timothy Doherty, IDC associate research analyst.