In 2004 the volume of mobile games market in Russia was 5,3 million items or $ 12,21 million say SmartMarketing

Press Information
Svetlana Zavjalova
pr@smartmarketing.ru
www.smartmarketing.ru

In 2004 the volume of mobile games market in Russia was 5,3 million items or $ 12,21 million say SmartMarketing

Moscow, Russia, – SmarMarketing research group announces the results of investigation concerning Russian market of games for mobile phones in 2004. In mentioned period the volume of mobile games supporting Java, Mophun and BREW market in Russia was 5,3 million items that is $ 12,21 million.
«Russian market of mobile games develops impetuously and by the end of 2004 this process intensified abruptly, – mentioned Svetlana Zavjalova, marketing manager of SmarMarketing. – In spite of some technical restrictions yet suppressing market evolution the penetration degree of Java supporting phones increases and thus stimulates the development of mobile games market. This market is formed already and according to preliminary prognoses in 2005 the 150-170% growth of game fraction is expected”.
The results of 2004 show positive quarter (13% in I quarter of 2004, 14% in II, 29% in III, and 43% in IV of 2004), 99,97% of games are based on Java 2 Mobile Edition, the shares of other game platforms are negligible. Due to definite difficulties of sale process of mobile games adapted for dozen of phone models and technological aspects of mobile nets the shares of sales by operator channels are minor, independent providers and content-aggregators dominate the market.
Two trends are worth of mentioning among the most interesting results of the last year: the beginning of price diversification process and content providers’ attempts to simplify the procedures of payment and installation of programs. Earlier (basically due to technical reasons of operator, provider etc. billing systems integration difficulties) games’ prices dispersion stayed minimal but during 2004 considerable price diversification was being observed. Besides the specialized solutions (for example, scratch cards and providers’ original payment systems) appearance enabling payment and pull complexity reduction also new type of market participants emerged – aggregators.
The unified socialdemographic profile of customer of games for mobile phones assumes male person at the age of 13-27 with clearly defined peak shifted to younger audience of unprovided category, purchasing not less than three games (preferably of well-known brands) a year. Nevertheless the majority of representatives of this category is ready to use unlicensed games and that causes considerable level of mobile piracy: not less than 71% of legal software market according to SmartMarketing estimate. In most cases mobile piracy takes the form of spontaneous exchange of mobile games purchased legally and occurs in users’ communities and on sites (both Web and WAP) created by enthusiasts and containing selections of programs. Frequently this fact is determined by motivation of self-affirmation, not by the intentions of piratical distribution of software.
According to SmartMarketing estimations three independent providers of mobile games were the leaders in 2004:
* PlayFon (LSC Ltd.)
* PlayMobile (NMG)
* Revkom (SPN Digital)
All the providers develop actively and dynamically. There are about ten operators using different schemes of licensing and selling on mobile games market. As a result of 2004 in the structure of mobile games sales the games for Nokia dominated (17,2%), games for Sony Ericsson took second place (13,2%), and games for Siemens were on third place (12,2%). Also mobile games for Samsung (4,3%) and LG (3,5%) are in top-five.
As one of the most prospective market trends worth of mentioning also is the development of multiuser games, lottery and tournament games, subscription schemes of distribution of content, advertising games and branded projects.
In the full edition of the report ($ 7,395) the qualitative indexes representing market structure, separate brands positions, shares of leading market actors, lists of operators, content providers and mobile games developers presented on Russian market are stated. The 7% discount for a report concerning any of the directions is granted to holders of annual subscription (four reports of quarter market monitoring).
SmartMarketing
SmartMarketing research group was founded in 2001 by a group graduates of Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (MSUESI) and Higher School of Economics headed by leading analyst Kippelman I. The group is engaged in investigation of behavior of high-tech household appliances, mobile communications, laptops etc. The additional information can be found on www.smartmarketing.ru.