Global games market to hit $108.9bn in 2017 – Newzoo

The global games market will reach $108.9bn (84bn) in 2017, according to Newzoo’s latest quarterly update, showing a growth of 7.8 per cent year-on-year.

The vast majority of that figure will come from digital game revenues, says Newzoo, reaching $94.4bn (72.8bn), or 87 per cent of the global market. This is largely down to the ever-growing mobile market, which is set to grow 19 per cent year-on-year to $46.1bn (35.5bn) – a total of 42 per cent of the market. It’s growing so fast, in fact, that Newzoo predicts it will account for just over half of the global games market by 2020.

The console market, meanwhile, currently accounts for $33.5bn (25.8bn), or 31 per cent of the global market. That’s a growth of 3.6 per cent year-on-year. The boxed and downloaded PC games segment, however, has shrunk by 1.3 per cent compared to this time last year to $24.8bn (19.1bn), accounting for 23 per cent of the global market overall.

"Our full-year revenue analysis showed that PC revenues of public companies decreased in both Western and Asian markets last year, while emerging markets had single-digit growth rates," said Newzoo.

"This decrease also has a significant impact on our longer-term forecasts. We now expect downloaded/boxed PC games to reach $24.5 billion in 2019, a significant adjustment downward compared to the $29.0 billion global figure for PC games in our January update."

Meanwhile, China is set to take a quarter of all global game revenues this year, reaching $27.5bn (21.2bn) – that’s a long way ahead of the US, which is only estimated to reach $25.1bn (19.3bn). It should be noted, however, that North America as a whole is on track for $27bn (20.8bn), making up 25 per cent of the global market. The EMEA region isn’t far behind, either, as this is set to claim around 24 per cent of the global market at $26.2bn (20.2bN).