Not only has it increased but it seems that it is way more than what gamers have been spending on traditional handheld consoles. As you can see in the graph above, it shows that spending on mobile games has increased from the previous year for both iOS and Android. However when it comes to handheld games, the levels have remained almost the same.
In fact the graph shows that even back in 2014, mobile gaming outpaced that of handheld consoles and that in 2015, that gap just got wider. The report also found that spending on multiplayer gaming was higher than that of single player games. “Among the Top 50 mobile games, multiplayer games accounted for ~60% of consumer spending despite only contributing ~30% of downloads in 1Q15.”
Granted there are titles on handheld consoles that aren’t available for mobile, but that’s starting to change. Nintendo announced earlier this year that they will be partnering with Japanese company DeNA to start creating more mobile games.