Apple, Google Emerge as New Gaming Market Leaders
Apple and Google continue to ramp up their assault on the mobile gaming sector as the two giant tech firms again registered growth that analysts said could soon obliterate the dominance of previous market leaders that date back in the early 1990s.
As of the latest report issued this week by mobile analytics firm Flurry, Android and iOS mobile platform appear to consistently eat away significant market shares from Japanese gaming titans Nintendo and Sony, with Apple and Google posting incredible two-year run of growths that tripled their presence in the lucrative industry.
"Combined, iOS and Android game revenue delivered $500 million, $800 million and $1.9 billion over 2009, 2010 and 2011, respectively," the new Flurry report, which also noted that Nintendo, once the market leader, has been presently reduced to a market pie that is a far cry from what it holds just some three years back.
Between them, Flurry reported that "Nintendo and Sony posted a combined $2.2 billion, $1.6 billion and $1.4 billion for 2009, 2010 and 2011," with the former now left with only some 34 percent hold of the total market share.
The new report also highlighted the stunning climb of both the Android and iOS platforms in the global gaming industry as their share spiked from 20 percent to 60 percent in a span of 24 months, further firming their outlook in a sector that is only expected to expand in the years ahead.
In the United States alone, the gaming industry generated overall sales of close to $3 billion in 2009 and $2.5 billion in the following year, with tech industry experts projecting that by this year's end, sector players would have amassed aggregated earnings of up to $3.3 billion.
The report also estimated that some 440 million gadgets that run both the Android and iOS platforms have been deployed so far, underscoring the continued dominance of both Apple and Google as the firms capitalise on the ever-changing landscape of the global gaming industry.
As consumers continue to migrate from traditional gaming consoles, which exclusively offer gaming pleasures, to the now popular tablet computers and smartphones that have become the preferred gaming devices due their versatility, Flurry predicted that more room for revenue growths can be expected both for Apple and Google, as well as other industry players that gravitated to the present dominance enjoyed by Android and iOS.
Nintendo and Sony, on the other hand, appear to consistently suffer slide as gamers gradually shift their focus on mobile gaming, a prospect that analysts said could further erode consumer interest from the two companies' flagship gaming consoles -Nintendo's DS and Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 and PSP.