Thanksgiving boosts games industry as payment services continue to grow

thanksgiving turkeyThanksgiving gave mobile gaming another shot in the arm as the amount of downloads increased by almost 50 percent in the United States. Data from mobile app developer Chartboost showed that traffic jumped by 48 percent in the USA compared with the normal Thursday average and non-US traffic also experienced a surge of 20 percent. The data was taken from 8,000 iOS and Android games on the Chartboost network and is a good omen ahead of a Christmas period that is expected to be the most competitive yet in the mobile gaming industry. Chartboost are of the opinion that over holiday periods mobile game marketers can and should be doing a lot more to be getting their products in front of would-be consumers.

One of the big beneficiaries of the explosion in mobile gaming will be payment services and Statista’s latest chart of the day shows that proximity mobile payment users in the USA could reach 48.1million by 2016. Last year just 2.7m used the mobile payment medium and that number is projected to mushroom to 7.9m in 2012 and grow every year until it reaches 48.1m by 2016.

The same chart, which is available at this link, shows that leading the world in mobile payments is Asia with 85million users already transacting using a device. It dwarves  both North America and Europe where only 32.8m and 26.7m use mobile payment solutions and the mobile gambling industry will be salivating at the prospects the Asian market does and will continue to bring them.