The increasing sophistication – and size – of smartphones is having a positive effect on revenues for developers of freemium games on mobile, according to a study from deep-data analytics and real-time player marketing platform, deltaDNA.

In mobile Free-to-Play (F2P) games, the company typically sees between 2-3 per cent of players making in-app purchases with an average Lifetime Value (LTV) of $1.50 (£1.08).

However, with smartphones becoming faster, larger and more capable of delivering a more engaging gaming experience, these monetization KPIs have begun to increase significantly.

The company studies players using 1.7m iPhone 8, iPhone X, Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S8 devices, looking at both the daily percentage of players going on to spend money on in-app purchases each day, alongside the each player’s LTV.  (In fact, the amount they spent overt the course of the two-month study.) The results revealed the following monetization KPIs.

In terms of in-app purchases, the Google Pixel 2 XL was the top-performing device, with 11.11 per cent of users making an in-app purchase. It was followed by the iPhone X on 10.23 per cent, with the iPhone 8 Plus in third on 9.03 per cent. Even the worst-performing device, the iPhone 8, saw a 6.72 per cent conversion rate.

When it came to LTV, the best-performing device was the iPhone 8 was the best-performing device with a figure of $3.97. Next was the iPhone X on $3.77 with the Google Pixel 2 XL in third on $3.46. All but one of the devices beat the typical LTV figure of $1.50. This was the iPhone 8 Plus which came in at $0.76.

“Making money in mobile F2P games has always been a challenging business,” said deltaDNA CEO Mark Robinson. “However, this latest study should make encouraging reading for game publishers and developers as it reinforces the trend that better performing smartphone models deliver more positive game monetization KPIs.

“Of course, the large majority of mobile gamers aren’t using the latest handsets but eventually those handsets will be replaced with better performing models and, with some of the latest Apple and Google devices achieving LTV’s of almost $4 and payer fractions of almost 12 per cent, I’m sure developers will be waiting eagerly for this shift to take place.”