A new survey confirms what has been suspected for a while, and that is that mobile and social games are leading the way in gaming trends, stomping over traditional consoles.

A new study conducted by Information Solutions Group, and relayed by casual gaming site, PopCap, revealed that over half, 52 percent of the 2,425 UK and US respondents played a game on a mobile phone in the past month. There was a marked difference between US respondents at 44 percent, compared to UK respondents’ 73 percent, reports CNN.

The biggest gaming group was smartphone owners, of which a whopping 83 percent said they played mobile games at least once a week, putting them in the “avid mobile gamer” category, states Allheadlinenews. A third said that they played a game within the past week, while some subjects admitted to only playing a game once before.

“Mobile games are, along with social games, the hottest sector of the video game industry by far. As more people purchase smartphones and the entire process of finding, purchasing and playing mobile games becomes as simple as browsing the internet, the mobile games market is going to accelerate even more,” said Dennis Ryan of Worldwide Publishing at PopCap to TechWatch.

Half of those surveyed declared buying a full version of a game after a free trial in the past year. Also one out of four gamers and one out of thee smartphone gamers said that they bought “additional content” for a game in the past year, according to CNN.

Finally, half of those surveyed said that the time they spent on mobile phone games has increased in the past year, and 78 percent admitted that mobile phone gaming became a regular part of their weekly activities, reports PC Advisor.