While many console and PC games are designed for longer sessions due to their gameplay flow and overall structure, many mobile games, especially the casual variant, are meant to be played in short bursts. This concept correlates with the habits of many smartphone gamers in the six markets surveyed in the Statista Consumer Insights Gaming Special. However, there are two notable exceptions to this rule.
In China and Brazil, players on mobile platforms tend to spend more time hunched over their smartphones than in the other markets. 46 percent of Chinese survey respondents claim to play more than one hour in an average smartphone gaming session, and one in five respondents even puts in more than two hours per session on average. Brazil, a comparatively small video game market, showcases a similar tendency towards longer play sessions. There, 39 percent of smartphone gamers play for more than one hour per session.
Mobile games are the most lucrative segment of the video game market, even though year-over-year growth has slowed compared to other industry segments, according to a Newzoo forecast from August 2023. Nevertheless, smartphone and tablet games contribute almost 50 percent to the total video games revenue, with some smartphone games like Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile being more profitable than whole studio conglomerates focusing on high production value titles.
