Men are more competitive than women when it comes to mobile gaming, and are more likely to pay for a game, according to research conducted by market research company Harris Interactive for Amazon.

Looking at differing behaviour between the sexes in the Amazon Appstore, the research found that 53 per cent of men feel competitive if a friend or family member is better at a game than they are. For women, the figure is 45 per cent.

Men are also more social when it comes to their mobile gaming experience. Around 53 per cent of men said they would share a top score in a mobile game, compared to 43 per cent of women.

Women appear to favour free-to-play games, with 84 per cent of women saying they would prefer to play a game using this kind of model, compared to 77 per cent of men. Just 27 per cent of women said they would pay for a game, compared to 40 per cent of men.

Additionally, 10 per cent of men said they would share screenshots of high scores, compared to 6 per cent of women, while 69 per cent said they would complain about bugs in their favourite games, compared to 52 per cent of women.

The survey results show that developers should consider the balance of leaderboards and achievements within games in order to cater for the preferences of men and women. For example, women appear to be more likely to be motivated by achievements than by leaderboards.

Another approach developers should consider for games they think are more suited to women, is to use the free to play model.

The research covered 2,000 US adults, of which 880 play games on their smartphone or tablet.