Luis Monzo
As one of the leading forms of entertainment today, the video games industry continues to generate remarkable profits from its vast player base. According to data gathered by GCN, the global video games market is set to jump over $92 billion value in 2020, growing by 10.9% year-on-year.
With $54.6 billion profit or nearly 60% of that amount, mobile games remain the most significant revenue stream of the global video games industry.
In 2017, the global video games industry reached $76.5 billion in revenue, revealed Statista Digital Market Outlook. By the end of 2018, this figure rose to $79.2 billion. The increasing trend continued during the last year, with the revenue reaching $83.1 billion.
Statistics show that in the last twelve months, the global video games profits jumped by $9 billion, reaching a total of $92.1billion this year. By the end of 2024, this figure is expected to rise to $100.5 billion.
As the largest source of revenue in the gaming industry, the mobile games segment has witnessed significant growth in recent years. Statistics show the global mobile games revenue jumped from $44.2 billion in 2017 to $54.6 billion in 2020. In the next four years, this value is set to reach $59.4 billion.
Download-only games, as the second-largest revenue stream, are expected to touch $16.8 billion value in 2020, growing 11.6% year-on-year. Online games and gaming networks are forecast to generate $20.5 billion in combined revenue this year.
Analyzed by geography, China represents the leading video games industry in the world,
expected to reach $27.5 billion value in 2020. The United States and Japan follow with $19.4 billion and $12.1 billion, respectively.
Recent years have witnessed a surge in the number of video game users. In 2017, more than 2.9 billion people all around the world were playing video games. Over the next two years, this figure jumped to over 3.3 billion globally.
The number of users is expected to increase to more than 3.7 billion in 2020, growing by 13% year-on-year. The most significant part of that number, or 1.5 billion users, comes from the mobile games segment.
Statista data also revealed that user penetration was 50.4% in 2020 and is expected to hit 56.4% by 2024. Statistics indicate that in the next four years, the number of people playing video games will increase to more than 4.3 billion. About 55% of everyone on Earth will be playing video games, and this will only continue to grow.
