Market Trends of Global Online Board Games Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the Online Board Games Market according to our research experts:
Increasing Users of Smartphones
- From 2016 to 2022, the total number of global smartphone users grew at an average of 10.4% annually, with the biggest growth coming in 2017. That year, the number of smartphone users grew by 20.9%. Smartphones are also the most popular type of mobile handsets. The latest smartphone users statistics show that of all the mobile devices being used today, 76.9 percent are smartphones.
- The latest figures show an increasing number of smartphone users year after year. In 2022, the number of global smartphone users is estimated at 6.6 billion, marking a 4.9% annual increase. It is also 2.9 billion, or 79 percent, more than the number of smartphone users in 2016, just six years ago. Reports estimate that global smartphone users will continue to increase and hit 6.8 billion by 2023. With an expected global population of just over eight billion by then, the smartphone penetration rate in 2023 will be around 85 percent. In other words, more than eight in ten people worldwide will be equipped with a smartphone.
- The above factors triggered the download and use of online board games on smartphones for entertainment purposes. Games such as chess and monopoly are highly ended traditional board games. Such a trend of growing smartphone users is expected to bring further demand for online board games in the years to come.
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In-App Purchases is expected to acquire higher revenue market share.
- Revenue from games on Google Play Store and Apple App Store in 2020 grew by 51.3% and 30.2%. Revenue generated through in-app purchases of fun on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in 2020 increased by 51.3% and 30.2%, respectively, over 2019, according to Sensor Tower's app analytics firm's preliminary estimates.
- Throughout the pandemic, there has been a spike in online board gaming time, with more users moving from freemium to paid gaming apps. Six out of 10 serious gamers tend to purchase gaming apps, according to CMR's recent consumer research for 2020.
- Real money gaming apps, which allow players to compete for cash prizes, also reported similar trends. WinZO Games saw a 10x increase in paid players by the end of 2020 compared to the previous year. Newly released games such as WCC by NextWave and Chess by WinZO have seen massive transactions in the last couple of months.
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