Games, Apps & Social Media Industry Market Research

Get These Powerful Market Research,
Business Data and Analysis Tools:

A Representative List of Organizations that Have Used our Research and Products:

Plunkett Research Online Overview

Plunkett's Industry Almancs Overview

Business Analysis, Market Size and Industry Video

What data challenge can we help you solve today?

Country:*

Organization:*

Job Title:*

* I agree to receive emails containing information about services and offers from Plunkett Research, Ltd. I understand that I can unsubscribe at any time and that my information will not be shared with third-parties. Terms & Conditions

Printed Almanac and Ebook

Custom Research Projects

Testimonials

Your tool is very comprehensive and immensely useful. The vertical marketing tool is very helpful, for it assists us in that venue, as well as targeting customers’ competition for new sales…The comprehensive material is absolutely fabulous. I am very impressed, I have to say!

Tammy Dalton, National Account Manager, MCI, Tammy Dalton

We are especially trying to push Plunkett since all of our students have to do so much industry research and your interface is so easy to use.

St. John’s College, Library Services

I’m amazed at how much information is available and the various ways to access it. This will be a major resource for our serious job seekers.

Penn State University, Career Services

I really appreciate the depth you were able to get to so quickly (for our project). The team has looked through the material and are very happy with the data you pulled together.

Marketing Manager, Hilton Worldwide

Plunkett Research Online is an excellent resource…the database contains a wealth of useful data on sectors and companies, which is easy to search and well presented. Help and advice on how to conduct, export and save searches is available at all stages.

Penny Crossland, Editor, VIP Magazine

The more I get into the database, the happier I am that we’ll have it–REALLY happy!!! Between the quality and affordability of your product, its appeal to and value for our users, and the inestimably ethical and loyalty-guaranteeing conduct of your business, I will always have more than sufficient praises to sing for Plunkett Research.

Michael Oppenheim, Collections & Reference Services, UCLA

Plunkett Research Online provides a great ‘one stop shop’ for us to quickly come up to speed on major industries. It provides us with an overall analysis of the market, key statistics, and overviews of the major players in the industry in an online service that is fast, easy to navigate, and reliable.

Wendy Stotts, Manager, Carlson Companies-Information Center

We are especially trying to push Plunkett’s since all of our students have to do so much industry research and your interface is so easy to use.

Gary White, Business Materials Selector, Penn State University

Industry Overview
Industry Statistics
Top companies
Industry trends

Games, Apps & Social Media OVERVIEW

In the history of the world of business, very few industries have enjoyed the stellar growth that we have seen in electronic media and entertainment over the past few decades. This spectacular growth has included electronic games, mobile apps and social media, but the meteoric growth in these three fields has been possible only because of underlying technology trends such as smartphone.

There is every reason for continued optimism regarding future growth of games, apps and social media due to three basic factors: 1) booming growth in the number of people around the world who use the internet on a regular basis, whether by fixed means, wireless devices or both; 2) continuing improvements in the speed and reliability of internet access; and 3) the continuing and dramatic evolution of electronic platforms, particularly smartphones. Game consoles also continue to improve on a steady basis. Eventually, virtual reality may take games and entertainment to an entirely new level.

Embedded, wearable and ubiquitous computing will be the next underlying technology advance that will further drive apps and social media, and to a lesser extent electronic games. Specifically, personal electronics have been evolving in the following order:

1) First, there was sometimes-on (think dial-up and internet service providers like the original AOL.com).

2) Then we progressed to always-on, thanks to the rapid adoption of fixed broadband, whether via DSL or cable, along with ever higher internet access speeds.

3) More recently, we evolved to always-with-you, thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices, particularly smartphones.

4) The coming leap forward in computing will be always-around-you, where, to a rapidly growing degree, the advent of pervasive computing devices and remote wireless sensors will connect us to, and collect data from, an astonishing array of objects, ranging from automobiles to appliances and air conditioning systems, to monitors that record our individual health statistics. The Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G wireless networks will be big enablers of this trend.

5) The future will include wearable computing devices and embedded computing that enables rooms to recognize you when you enter and automatically configure nearby devices to your personal preferences.

6) The future will also include devices that know which types of entertainment, games or social media we habitually use at certain times of day, and therefore push those services to you seamlessly and automatically. Amazon’s Echo and similar personal digital assistants (“smart speakers”) are the recent embodiment of this trend.

Globally, as of 2020, there were approximately 8.7 billion wireless device subscriptions in a world of 7.8 billion people, along with 4.6 billion people worldwide who were internet users. (Some users have more than one wireless service subscription.) The base of people around the world who adopt smartphones will continue to grow, and they will use them to access the internet, games and mobile apps in massive numbers.

Three extremely important sectors of this evolving personal communications and media world include electronic games, apps and social media (GASM), and the lines between these three sectors frequently blur. For example, multiplayer online games encourage communication between communities of players, while social media like Facebook are often the platforms that support the most popular games. Meanwhile, apps are rapidly becoming the tool of choice for launching a wide variety of communications tools, entertainment and internet sites, including games. Users seamlessly let their online access flow from one segment of GASM to the other, and often use all three at once.

The security of user data and customer privacy remain significant concerns in the GASM business, particularly after Sony suffered a major hacking of millions of its Sony Online Entertainment network accounts in early 2011. Elsewhere, customer privacy issues have been major points of concern at Facebook and other social media services. Customers want to play games online and they want to interact on social networks, but they also want to control and protect their own personal data, and they certainly want to feel their credit card information is secure.

The latest generation of personal computers and operating systems have evolved to be very-app oriented, with the intent to make the PC experience more like the smartphone experience. Another powerful trend is growing consumer interest in watching electronic game playing as a spectator sport (“esports”), where extremely talented amateurs, and sometimes professionals, compete either in live auditoriums with audiences, or on platforms like Twitch for online viewers.