据今日美国的报道，今年手机虚拟支付将达到1亿6800万美元规模。在美国有23%的人约7000万人拥有智能手机，其中将近45%通过手机下载游戏以及16%的游戏下载用户每年支付的虚拟按费用为41美元。

虚拟交易

数据来自Magid Media Futures 2010 Wireless and Consumers study。该调查显示55%的智能手机用户有虚拟消费的意愿，而现有的手机支付用户表示在未来12个月会有更多的手机消费支出。

去年手机支付超过10亿美元，今年预计将达到16亿8000万美元的规模。

Aurora Feint公司的Steve Lin表示随着像zynga旗下的farmville为代表的游戏进入手机游戏市场，虚拟交易市场将出现进一步的爆炸。

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A lot of money is being spent on nothing. Well, nothing tangible or real. But virtual goods such as in smartphone games are expected to hit sales of $168 million this year, according to research and consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates.

Among the more than 70 million U.S. smartphone owners — 23% of the population — nearly half (45%) play mobile games and 16% spend an average of $41 annually on in-game virtual goods, according to the Magid Media Futures 2010 Wireless and Consumers study, conducted with mobile social gaming network OpenFeint.

Spending is expected grow with even more smartphone users (55%) interested in buying virtual goods and current spenders saying they plan to spend as much in the next 12 months.

Other facts from the study:

– Compared to the general population, smartphone gamers skew male and are between 18 and 34 years of age.

– Smartphone gamers are active consumers of multiple games, downloading 14 games on average per year. Of these games, recipients paid money for 4 games and obtained 10 for free.

– The most popular way to find games is through app store rankings.

For some context, market research firm Inside Network estimated that last year online players in the USA spent more than $1 billion on virtual goods, and they’re expected to spend $1.6 billion this year.

“The market for virtual goods has already exploded in web-based games like Zynga’s Farmville, and we’re just now starting to see this trend in the mobile space,” said Aurora Feint’s Steve Lin in a statement with the report. “In just the last few months we’ve seen amazing interest from our game developers in building mobile social games with virtual goods. Our internal numbers reflect the study in that free-to-play models will be the dominant pricing structure in the future.