Attention, shoppers: Men outspend women 9 to 1 on mobile virtual goods

Given the stereotype of how much women love shopping, you’d expect them to be the biggest spenders online. And women are indeed fueling purchases at sites such as Gilt Groupe. But when it comes to purchases of virtual goods in mobile social games, men outspend women by 9 to 1, according to a survey by MocoSpace.

The data comes from a study of 1,500 social gamers on Boston-based MocoSpace‘s mobile entertainment platform. The company analyzed anonymous user behavior to see how the sexes behave when it comes to games. It found that 53 percent of MocaSpace mobile social gamers are male and 47 percent are female. Men spend slightly more time playing the games, averaging 21 minutes a day compared to 19 minutes for women.

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But 69 percent of the males buy virtual goods and only 31 percent of females do. On top of that, those male gamers are responsible for 90 percent of virtual goods that are purchased inside the games. It shows that men really do love to shop, at least when it comes to gaming. Games on MocoSpace include Games on the MocoSpace Games platform include Street Wars, Stage Hero, and Happy Farm. Overall, there are 17 million members on MocoSpace’s platform.

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