APAC consumers lead in global gaming growth

The Asia Pacific region saw the most significant growth in market share for global consumer spend across mobile, PC and Mac gaming. 

That's according to data.ai and IDC's Gaming Spotlight 2023 report, which also reveals that mobile remains the most significant opportunity for games and will be a critical driver of growth in the sector.

Why gaming matters

As mobile continues to level the playing field for gaming, publishers can target consumers in niche areas. Having the right data is critical to stay ahead in a fast-changing landscape, in order to streamline acquisition and optimise monetisation opportunities.

Key findings

• Mobile gaming spend falls 2% year on year, but the platform is still set to surpass US$108bn worldwide in 2023.
• Mobile will maintain its 2.7x lead over PC/Mac to cement it as a critical driver of growth in the sector.
• Home console and PC/Mac game spending worldwide will rise 3% to US$43bn and 4% to US$40bn, respectively, in 2023 versus 2022.
• Handheld console game spending is on track to decline 20% in 2023, to less than US$3bn.
• South Korea led APAC growth in Q1 2023, while Brazil, Turkey and Mexico led growth outside Western Europe, North America and APAC.
• North America (driven by the US) and Western Europe comprised around half of mobile gaming spend in Q1 2023.
• Across all platforms, global consumer spend on cloud-streamed gaming services should jump 50% to reach US$3.8bn in 2023.
• Genre preferences were varied on mobile, with eight distinct subgenres making up the top 10 grossing games on mobile.

Key quote

“While video ads dominate in mobile gaming, our research suggests that rewarded video ads are much more popular with gamers than are traditional video ads. Sentiment toward in-game mobile ads also appears to have deteriorated in the past two years and the rollout of Apple’s ATT Framework has, at best, contributed modestly to this outcome” – Lewis Ward, Research Director of Gaming, Esports and VR/AR, IDC.