The proportion of the UK population that pays to play games on their mobile phones has risen to 39%.

According to research by GameHouse and NewZoo, the number of people paying to play a game, either by buying games or using micropayments to buy goods within a game, has now hit 39%.

This represents 9.2 million Brits, according to the research, a growth of 24% over the past year. Of those that buy games, 67% buy more than one game per month.

According to the research, 54% had paid money for ‘functional’ virtual goods that enable them to progress within a game and 51% had bought purely ‘decorative’ virtual goods.

The research also revealed that the total number of people playing mobile games has reached 23.9m, up 18.3% in the past year. The majority (75%) play on smartphones and 17% of people play on tablets.

Rumbi Pfende, GameHouse UK country manager, said the opportunity for brands is significant but the key is to be relevant.

“If you have a relevant ad people will interact. They may be micropaymets but it does add up, people are playing games and spending money so brands need to be there,” she said.

The research also looked into the trends around social gaming, finding that the number of social games increased by 8% over the past year to 19.1m in the UK. Social games are less likely to pay for games than mobile gamers, with 26% paying every month to play a social game.

Facebook is significantly the most popular social network to play games on with 94% having played games on Facebook.