Juniper Research: Global Mobile Games Market to Grow from Revenues of $3bn in 2006 to nearly $17bn in 2011

Juniper Research predicts "the evolution in mobile games - involving subscription & downloads - is set to continue in the next five years, with a growth in global revenues from $3.1bn in 2006 to approaching $17.6bn by 2011. A rise producing a cumulative revenue stream of nearly $57bn over the next six years."

According to the firm, "the Asia Pacific region has dominated the market since its inception, with Japanese and South Korean markets in the vanguard. Asia Pacific is forecast to contribute 38% of cumulative revenues from 2006 to 2011, with Europe contributing 31%, North America 22% and the rest of the world 9 per cent."

Juniper believes that "whilst the leading edge games technology will focus on 3D and multiplayer games, the greatest growth will come from the casual game sector. Female games players will also grow as a proportion of the market with a more even balance of genders using mobile games in the future."

Bruce Gibson at Juniper Research said, “I think the mobile games industry has at last found its identity, and it is a strong one. There is a real demand for mobile entertainment and games are at the very heart of it. The casual games sector is going to be the market driver, even though it may not be at the leading edge of mobile games technology. Casual games make most use of the inherent advantages of the mobile platform. People want to fill ‘dead time’ with easy to use, but fun games. This is the same in just about every culture."

Hard to believe mobile gaming via handsets and not including protable gaming devices, is going to be a $3.1 billion market this year. Am I missing something here?