The Rise of Mobile Gaming Across Africa
Smartphone ownership has increased significantly around the world over the past few years. It is this increase that has caught the eye of game developers and companies alike who realise just how much impact the mobile industry is having. The rising increase in the number of mobile device owners has opened the floodgates for potential new gamers. Whilst gamers have traditionally been mostly associated with male teenagers and young adults the mobile market has meant that this target group has now widened to include children, parents, female gamers and even pensioners who can all get gaming within a few swipes and don’t have to worry about their lack of previous gaming knowledge or experience.
The majority of the West and the East have been enjoying plenty of mobile based gaming action in the last few years just like the online Slots at Royal Vegas Canada. The United States and the UK have both seen incredible rates of growth in their mobile marketplace thanks to the range of smartphone and tablet technology coming to market. This coupled with the fact that even independent game developers can now use a range of tools to help create, develop and even more importantly distribute their games onto various platforms such as Apple’s iOS and Android has meant that even the gaming choice has risen considerably.
Notably, however, there has also been a significant increase in smartphone usage in Africa and across the Middle East in the last few years. eMarketer has reported that between the years of 2013 and 2014 the usage has in fact almost doubled and that figure continues to climb. You simply have to look at how rapidly mobile gaming grew thanks to the sale of smartphones and other mobile-based devices in the West and this could have a substantial impact on mobile gaming in the future.
With South Africa becoming one of the top 25 countries in the world for user growth in the smartphone marketplace, putting in on par with France, you can see just how important this continental growth is for the industry. There has been a 27% rise in the number of device owners in South Africa alone and with a country populated with nearly 53 million people it’s certainly a considerable market to break in to, with the continent itself is home to more than a billion people. During research for the increasing South African mobile market around 70% of smartphone users use their devices for gaming and it’s these types of numbers that will help developers and gaming companies create new and exciting gaming experiences for this growing African market.
