Onebip by Neomobile, the global mobile payments service, has published a detailed global analysis of its partners’ customer buying behaviour in the online gaming sector.

Based on the analysis of millions of transactions across 65 countries over the course of a full year, Onebip has uncovered the spending habits of the world’s online gamers.

Gamers are increasingly choosing to pay for their online gaming experiences through the convenience of their mobile phone bill via carrier billing over the more traditional payment methods such as credit cards or PayPal. Onebip’s analysis is able to paint a picture of the spending habits of gamers around the world and the increasing growth in the adoption of mobile carrier billing.

Globally, online gamers spend an average of €4.73 per single transaction. Gamers in the UK spend nearly double this with an average transaction value of €8.94, making the UK the 3rd biggest spender in the world by transaction value.

The average spend per transaction in Switzerland tops the global list at €15.09. This is mainly due to carriers in the country offering gaming companies the option to charge much higher price points to online gamers that pay via carrier billing compared to all other countries. In fact, Onebip’s data found that there was a direct correlation between countries offering higher price points as an option and an increase in the average transaction value i.e. consumers are embracing the use of carrier billing to pay for higher priced items such as larger “bundles” of virtual currency. In bigger gaming markets compared to Switzerland such as Turkey that recently increased the price points available for payment via carrier billing, gaming companies saw an increase in revenue (gross transaction volume) and average transaction value.

In line with common industry trends, the winter holiday period is the busiest time for online gaming spend, with 11% of global spend taking place during the month of December. However, after December, gamers spend more money during the summer period than any other point in the year. The summer months of June, July and August account for 30% of global spend. In contrast April and May are the quietest months with just 4% of annual spend in each month respectively.

Looking at the UK specifically, the most gaming transactions happen in the evening from 18.00 – 23.59 (GMT/UT) with 38% of daily transactions happening during this time. Reinforcing the view that the UK prefers to game into the evening, the UK alone sees an unusual spike in activity during the hour starting at 22.00 GMT where 13% of all daily transactions take place (this is a sharp increase from the hours before and after – 21.00 and 23.00 where only 3% and 5% of daily transactions take place respectively).

While it is true that more transactions take place on Saturday than on any other day in the week, the spike is not statistically very significant, with between 1-2% more transactions on Saturday over on any other day. Clearly gamers are finding time to play all week, or at the least, they don’t feel the need to wait until the weekend to spend their money.