Mobile gaming is growing at a stronger rate than the console and handheld gaming markets, but this still won’t make it mobile’s “killer application” according to a recent report from UK-based entertainment analyst firm Understanding & Solutions (via release). Though mobile gaming has a smaller share of the overall gaming market, its growth puts it in second place behind online games. Other key points include:

-- Understanding & Solutions Analyst David Rouse estimates global revenues from mobile gaming at $3.6 billion this year, and nearly doubling to $6 billion by 2011. These figures are very similar to those from research firm ISuppli, which predicts mobile gaming revenue to hit $6.623 billion by 2011. For 2007, it estimates a slightly lower figure of $2.854 billion, compared to Understanding & Solutions’ $3.6 billion.

-- Juniper, another research outfit, blew both their estimates away, recently putting the mobile gaming market at $10.5 billion in 2009 and $17.6 billion by 2011.

-- Pay-per-download is still the most important revenue generator around the world, but the report found that subscription-based and ad-funded models are on the rise.

-- In China and India, mobile gaming is being driven by the snowballing mobile phone take-up rate, but because of low prices, Asia (excluding Korea and Japan) will still only generate less than 10 percent of global mobile gaming revenues in 2011.

• Mobile Game Revenues Hit $6.6 Billion, Mobile Video $14.570 billion By 2011: Report