In this Industry Report

EA Mobile has consolidated its position as the number one global mobile games publisher. Backed by a strong slate of releases for the iPhone, and the continued success of its games for operators' portals, it achieved $49m revenues in Q1 2009 (equal to its previous Q4 2008 record). A strong line up of iPhone (and iPod Touch) titles helped second placed Gameloft improve its North American performance (where total sales were up 37% on the previous year). Third placed Glu Mobile beat its forecast and achieved one per cent year-on-year growth, when it had expected a decline. It has forecast lower sales for the rest of the year.

The growth of new platforms and application stores continued at speed in Q1 2009 and early Q2. Paid applications launched in the US and UK for Google's Android Market, Research In Motion launched its own application store called Blackberry App World and Nokia reported that its N-Gage mobile games platform had nearly 1m registered profiles.
This quarterly report combines Mobile Media Intelligence data and analyst commentary covering publishers' financial results, new title releases, mobile games market revenues and forecasts in areas covered by Screen Digest Mobile Media Intelligence: Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, India and China.

Highlights:

• EA Mobile remains the top publisher with $49m Q1 revenues and beat its fiscal year 2009 target
• Glu Mobile cuts its losses and beat expectations with one per cent year-on-year growth
• iPhone games and favourable currency exchange rates helped Gameloft in North America
• Revenues from iPhone games surpassed $86m, though growth was slower than in Q4 2008
• Q1 2009 releases show a stronger trend towards more original IP (intellectual property) titles

In this report:

• Global overview
• North America
• Western Europe
• Central & Eastern Europe
• Asia-Pacific

List of tables and charts:

Mobile Media Intelligence

Author/s

Jack Kent

Companies mentioned