Cellufun Passes 2 Million Users: Is Rising Unemployment Helping Mobile Virtual Worlds?

Technically someone associated with the brand opined as much in an email to me today about Cellufun, a mobile community dubbed "The World's Mobile Playground," topping two million users.

According to the company,  Cellufun posted more than 150,000 new monthly registrations over the past several months and expects even greater registration growth between now and year’s end.

New mobile operator partners, new avatars, virtual goods, innovative games, and friend features contributed to the substantial increase in recent registration traffic over the last quarter. Today, Cellufun gets about half of its traffic from partnerships with mobile operators and handset partners.

What's particularly interesting: Cellufun says registered users have extreme engagement levels, with the average user spending more than 7 hours monthly on their phone in the Cellufun community.  Currently, the demographics are about 55% female and 45% male in the 16-34 age range with approximately 25% of users on smart phones and 75% on feature phones.  From a quick glance at the site's scrolling update bar, which features updates on avatars, I'd say it may be even more skewed female than this.

But, as this person suggested, there may be even more behind the brand's meteoric growth.

"With the unemployment rate on the rise, a growing trend of mobile virtual worlds has seemed to emerge, allowing people more time to play mobile games, update their avatars, and take creative control over their virtual clothing, goods, pets, and more," this person writes.

It's an interesting theory. And it certainly could have merit, though on its face it's hard to imagine the unemployed spending much time on trivialities. If it is true, I'm willing to bet that most usage among the unemployed comes from people in the 16- to 21-year-old range, who have more free time no matter their job status.

Or it's the older end of the mix, seeking some serious stress release in between sending out resumes.

Read more here.

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