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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Analysis   >   How much does an American spend on mobile games? Less than a Chinese person

How much does an American spend on mobile games? Less than a Chinese person

By on May 7, 2014

SuperDataResearch has just released some fascinating statistics on conversion rates and ARPPU of mobile games, comparing the behaviour of players in the US and China. Their conclusion might not be what you expect: American has higher conversion rates and lower spend than China.

In Q1 2014, these were the stats:

  • Conversion rate: US 5.0%; China 2.9%
  • ARPPU: US $21.60; China $32.46

(Note that the ARPPU is the three-monthly ARPPU, as is the conversion rate. Be very careful when comparing to ARPPU benchmarks, since some people quote by day, by month, over the full lifetime or even by the first six weeks since launch).

The Chinese market has seen rapid growth in mobile MAUs, rising from 182m in 2013 to an estimated 266 million by the end of 2014. In contrast, the US growth has stalled, for the perfectly good reason that most Americans played a mobile game in 2013. 237 million to be exact, which is expected to rise by only 5 million to 242 million by the end of 2014.

So the Chinese market is big, growing and with an audience who will spend more than Americans will. Oh, and it’s dominated by Android.

Some big changes afoot in the global industry.

You can check out the details over at SuperDataResearch, or check out the teaser deck below. For more benchmark statistics, visit GAMESbrief’s collection of public  benchmark data.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com