A new survey from PopCap Games, the division of EA responsible for hits including Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies, has announced the results of its third survey of mobile games consumption. It’s calculated there are now more than 125 million people playing mobile games in the UK and the USA.

44% of adults surveyed had played at least one mobile game in the past month, which was an increase of 29% from a year ago. Tablets are bringing many people to mobile gaming: 9% of people who’d become a mobile gamer in the past year had started by playing on a new tablet.

Phones now account for 33% of all video game playing time, followed by computers at 32%, dedicated consoles at 18% and tablets at 13%.

Dennis Ryan, VP of Worldwide Publishing at PopCap, said “Mobile games continue to vie with social games as the hottest sector of the video game industry and that trend shows no sign of waning. Smartphone adoption continues apace and tablet adoption has added considerable fuel to the fire. Even more important, consumers are embracing the shift toward freemium games and other add-on game content purchases, driving the dramatic and rapid shift in the forms of monetisation being used by developers and publishers.”

51% of mobile gamers made mobile game-related purchases in the past year. However, the average spend by mobile gamers fell from $29.21 per person in 2010 to $21.24 in 2011. Most of this spend is on the games themselves - often upgrading from a free version to a paid version - followed by spending on game content and in-game currency.

The survey was conducted by Information Solutions Group by contacting 2,301 mobile phone owners in the United States and the United Kingdom.

[Report (pdf)]