Mobile Gaming Audience is Younger, Has Strong Female Presence

In the charts provided, Flurry shows how the age and gender demographics are divvied up between the various platforms. On mobile phones, the average gamer age is 28, compared with 34 on consoles. Mobile gamers are also more heavily female (53%) than traditional gamers (only 40% female).

More importantly (well, to game publishers at least), is the fact that there's a greater density in the 18-49 demographic on mobile than on traditional platforms. That means more disposable income. Says  Flurry: "iOS and Android devices are attracting users during their earning years versus, in particular their teenage years, where they likely cannot afford more expensive mobile devices."

Remarkably, the audience for mobile gaming is also very, very large - larger, in fact, than the worldwide install base of console game leaders (Wii, Xbox, PlayStation) combined. That traditional console audience is estimated at 180 million. Mobile gaming is even larger than portable gaming (Nintendo DS and Sony PSP), estimated at 200 million. And it's larger than primetime TV watching, too, as has been reported previously - as any given primetime TV show can top just 20 million viewers.

So how large is it? Flurry says it alone detects 250 million unique devices with over 750,000 coming online daily. It has seen over 300 million user sessions across all its games and apps, 37% of which are from games alone. But Flurry is only seeing a portion of the overall market - it only sees those devices where apps using Flurry's services are running. But it extrapolated from a sample of its users (around 60,000+ users) who self-reported age, gender and location to take a look at audience demographics in more detail - specifically, U.S. mobile gamer demographics.

You can see those findings in the charts below.

via readwriteweb.com

I would have to add to this with the majority of the kids' I see playing on the phones, they are using their "mom's" phone and requesting games to be purchased and downloaded.  This could add to the data for the female range of gamers between older age categories.  Having said this, the moms are also playing some of the games which are discovered by their kids.     

I would like to see the breakout of the type of games which the demographics are playing.