Last month (May 17), Gartner reported that a buoyant market for mobile gaming will open up opportunities for application store owners and handset vendors.

Gartner predicts that worldwide mobile gaming end-user revenue will surpass $5.6 billion in 2010, a 19 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $4.7 billion. By 2014, the firm says, the market will grow steadily to reach $11.4 billion.

“The hype around mobile application stores has opened this market up to numerous publishers and developers – further expanding revenue potential and competition in this industry,” said Gartner research analyst Tuong Nguyen, in a release. “Although we expect most mobile gamers to continue to gravitate toward ‘free’ games, we do not expect the ad-supported model to take off within the next three years despite the success we have seen with this approach in the Japanese market**.”

The proliferation of smartphones worldwide has resulted in a greater usage of mobile games, downloaded as mobile consumer applications – Gartner estimates that 70 to 80 percent of all applications downloaded are mobile games. Moreover, 60 to 70 percent of these games are “free,” a trend which is expected to continue for the next two to three years.

Gartner identifies the following factors contributing to the recent boost in mobile gaming worldwide:

• Increasing accessibility of mobile games in emerging markets, where alternative media are limited
• Growing availability of micropayments for mobile gamers, whereas previous users may have been wary of spending a large amount of money on a game upfront.
• Improved user interfaces for handset vendors as a competitive differentiator
• Growing number of devices implementing touchscreens and gesture, and enhanced qwerty keyboards
• Increasing number of games that take advantage of existing device features like camera, GPS, accelerometers, etc.
• Increased competition for market share in the developer space, caused by the popularity of application stores.

For carriers, Gartner says facilitating mobile gaming growth will require improving ease of use and access for customers. “Direct billing is one of the most significant value-adds that (carriers) can provide their partners – allowing consumers to charge purchases directly to their wireless bills. Improvements to boost access to mobile games via search and recommendation engines will also improve take rates for mobile gaming,” said the firm, in the release.

Samsung’s new Galaxy S smartphone offers enhanced gaming capability

On Monday (June 28), Roger Cheng of the Wall Street Journal wrote about Samsung’s latest answer to the Apple iPhone: the marquee Galaxy S, which will be carried in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA.

Samsung, currently the world’s No. 2 cellphone maker (behind Nokia) is only the fifth-largest player in the smartphone category (behind Nokia, RIM, Apple and HTC), Cheng writes.

“Samsung has turned to Google’s Android (operating system) as well as strong carrier relationships to kickstart its smartphone business,” Cheng adds. “While its initial attempts at an Android phone have yielded middling success, it has higher hopes for the Galaxy S, which features a 1-gigahertz Samsung processor, a brighter Super Amoled touchscreen display and a six-axis sensor for mobile games.”

** To read more about Japanese Smartphone Usage, see Twitter Phones Coming to Japan.

- newsletter@iQmetrix.com

* To read more about Mobile Apps and Gaming Trends, check out the following articles from iQmetrix News & Views:

Customer Loyalty: Social Media 'Games'

Microsoft and Verizon to Offer Kin One, Two to Younger Market  

New Smartphone Apps Track Bodily Vital Signs

Student Smartphone Use Rising: Study

App Downloads and Mobile Search on the Rise