Thanksgiving Was a Blessing for the US Mobile Gambling and Payment

The Thanksgiving holiday gave the US mobile gaming sector another boost.

The amount of mobile downloads grew almost 50 percent during the period in the United States. Mobile app developer Chartboost revealed data showing a 48 percent increase in the USA traffic compared with the typical Thursday average. Also, non-US mobile traffic grew 20 percent.

The data was based on the top 8,000 iOS and Android games on the Chartboost network, including social casino games that are allowed by American gambling laws. The figure can serve as a basis for the traffic during the upcoming Christmas period. Industry analysts expect this holiday season to be the biggest in the history of mobile gaming.

According to Chartboost, mobile marketers and publishers will have to do a lot more for to get their products to the would-be consumers during the coming holiday season. Competition will be harsh and there will be a lot of noise in the advertising.

Quite likely, the payment services will be the biggest beneficiaries of the explosion in mobile gaming. According to a chart given to the American gambling news forums from Statista, the number of proximity mobile payment users in the USA will reach a staggering 48.1 million by 2016.

For comparison: in 2011, just a mere 2.7 million used their mobile devices for proximity payment purposes. The number is estimated to reach 7.9 million by the end of 2012.

Asia is by far the world leader in mobile payments with 85 million users already making transactions on their smartphones and tablets. North America comes second with 32.8 million users. Europe is third with 26.7 million mobile payment users. These figures are not to be confused with the mobile proximity payers' numbers.