If you thought mobile games were mainly a male activity then think again. According to a recent study from analytics firm Flurry, females spend more money – as well as 35 per cent more time – on mobile games than males. What’s more, they’re more loyal to them than men are.

Based on a sample of successful games that reach a total of 1.1 million devices on the Flurry platform, it was found women make 31 per cent more in-app purchases than men.

“While the fact that females invest more time in gaming apps, especially in management and simulation games, has rarely been disputed, the fact that females also outspend males in in-app purchases came as a surprise to us,” said Simon Khalaf, Flurry president and CEO.

The study also found that females are more loyal than males when it comes to retention – women have 42 per cent higher 7-day retention rates on average versus males.

At first, Flurry thought that a specific genre of games was skewing the numbers, perhaps through the overnight smash-hit of ‘Kim Kardashian: Hollywood’. But this was not the case.

Examining the weekly time spent for 19 categories of iOS games, nine categories skew female – including the top two categories (solitaire and management/simulation) – from a time-spent perspective. Six categories skew male and four categories are split almost evenly between male and female (click image below to enlarge).

flurry 3

Males have kept their dominance in card/battle games, strategy, tower defense, sports and action/RPG. “That should give some hardcore game reviewers, irked by the overnight success of the Kardashian game, a sigh of relief,” said Khalaf.

Flurry adds that the broad gender appeal of mobile gaming will likely make it more attractive to advertisers and their agencies.