Mobile in 2011 is set to become a much more important part of an egaming company's offering.

The past year has been good for mobile gaming, with consistent, strong growth in the sector and, according to the head of Spin 3 and Spiral Solutions, Matti Zinder, 2011 is going to be an even better year.

Talking to iNTERGAMINGi recently, Zinder highlighted five key trends that all reflect on the mobile gaming side - mobile social, app store, mobile banking, smartphones and application segmentation. "In principle, all of these trends apply to and affect gaming," said Zinder. "The app store side is definitely an influencing factor and I believe as we go into the future and as more markets regulate, we’re going to see more gambling applications on app stores across countries with egaming regulation; there’s no doubt in miy mind about that."

Talking about the mobile social trend, Zinder commented: "People are interacting with each other with a lot of different features and placing play for fun applications on Facebook and other social platforms. A possibility to convert to play for real is a strong trend as well. It’s happening now and it’s going to become an even stronger thing." He added: "These are all trends that are taking place and were very influential throughout 2010."

Throughout 2010, these five major growth and development factors have resulted in a huge pick up in overall mobile usage, advanced application usage, interaction with people with their mobile devices, all of which have affected mobile gambling quite positively. "The opportunity for gambling has never been bigger; there has been very, very strong revenue growth," said Zinder.

The UK is still currently the largest market for mobile gaming, but according to Zinder, when Italy and Denmark regulate early next year with casino games, that will shift.

Looking ahead, Zinder believes that we will see the development of mobile gaming mirroring the developments that are taking place in the regulated egaming markets. "You’ll see growth in most of the new regulated markets. That’s going to be a very strong trend though, I’m sure of it.  We’re already starting to see initial signs of that and I think we’ll see continued growth in mobile." He continued: "I think mobile in 2011 will actually become a much more important part of an egaming company’s offering. And I think those companies that don’t embrace mobile in a very strong way are going to be left out."