Japan’s gaming industry generated $10.8B in 2013 — half of that was from smartphones

Japan’s game market is growing, but it has little to do with Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft.

Smartphone games generated $5.4 billion in spending in Japan in 2013, according to market-intelligence firm CyberZ. That’s up from $3 billion in 2012. This means that smartphones now make up half of all game-related spending in Japan — the nation’s total market was $10.8 billion for the year. In 2012, revenues from Android, iOS, and other apps only made up less than 30 percent of the total market, which was $9.8 billion. Extremely popular free-to-play titles like GungHo Online’s role-player Puzzle & Dragons and SuperCell‘s casual strategy title Clash of Clans were largely responsible for the sector’s enormous growth.