Southeast Asia is the World's Fastest-Growing Mobile Games Market

Southeast Asia is the current fastest-growing mobile games market in the world, and is expected to grow 17% year-over-year in 2019 according to Newzoo’s Global Games Market Report. In 2019 alone, it will generate game revenues of more than $4.3 billion.

Games market in Southeast Asia (consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), is like no other in the world, in terms of tastes, top publishers, and more.

Currently, mobile revenue is nearly 70% of the region's total games revenue, with PC at 22% and console at 8%. All segments are growing, but mobile is growing the fastest. 

Mobile is leading the charge for innovative monetization, and the most successful mobile titles, including Pokemon Go and Honor of Kings, can retain players—and payers—for as long as most of the biggest titles on PC and console. Many of these monetization techniques are also trickling into console and PC titles.

Local company Sea Group (previously known as Garena) is one of the top publishers in the region, having previously built a name for itself by publishing and localizing Chinese company Tencent’s games in SEA. The company released its first original IP and title, Free Fire, last year. The title was a huge hit in Southeast Asia, dramatically spiking Sea Group’s revenues in the region, with Thailand accounting for the highest share.

Free Fire’s success was not just limited to SEA, however, with the game also performing well in another growth market: Latin America.

Currently, mobile revenue is nearly 70% of the region's total games revenue, with PC at 22% and console at 8%. All segments are growing, but mobile is growing the fastest.

Southeast Asia was included as a part of the Asia-Pacific region in Newzoo's Global Games Market Report earlier this year, which as a whole was the largest gaming region by revenue at $72.2 billion -- 47% of the total global games market.

That same report noted mobile was continuing in an ongoing trend to surpass PC game revenue, and at the time was projected to make up 45% of the total games market by the end of 2019, as quoted by Games Industry.