Mobile market

Background

Some of the earliest games on mobile phones include a version of Tetris playable on some phones from 1994 and Nokia's Snake from 1997.

Today, with the popularity of smartphones and the existence of platforms such as the App Store and Google Play, games can easily by downloaded and played by anyone, often for free.

Most Successful Mobile Games

Most Played Mobile Games by Player Count

The top ten most played games on mobile by player count, as of November 2019:

Game	Players	Release Date	Publisher
Pokemon Go	1,000 million	6th July, 2016	Niantic
Despicable Me: Minion Rush	900 million	10th June, 2013	Gameloft
Candy Crush Saga	500 million	12th April, 2012	King
Fruit Ninja	500 million	21st April, 2010	Halfbrick Studios
Jetpack Joyride	500 million	1st September, 2011	Halfbrick Studios
Temple Run	500 million	4th August, 2011	Imangi Studios
Garena Free Fire	450 milion	24th November, 2017	Garena
PUBG Mobile	400 million	19th March, 2018	Tencent Games
Asphalt 8: Airborne	350 million	22nd August, 2013	Gameloft
Angry Birds	300 million	11th December, 2009	Rovio Entertainment

Highest Grossing Mobile Games in Revenue

The top ten highest grossing games on mobile by total revenue, as of November 2019

Game	Revenue	Release Date	Publisher
Monster Strike	$7.2 billion	8th August, 2013	Mixi
Puzzle & Dragons	$7 billion	20th February, 2012	GungHo Online Entertainment
Clash of Clans	$6.4 billion	2nd August, 2012	Supercell
Arena of Valor	$6.4 billion	26th November, 2015	Tencent Games
Candy Crush Saga	$3.91 billion	14th November, 2012	King
Pokémon Go	$3.3 billion	6th July, 2016	Nintendo
Fate/Grand Order	$3 billion	30th July, 2015	Aniplex
Game of War: Fire Age	$2.8 Billion	25th July, 2013	Machine Zone
Fantasy Westward Journey	$2.5 billion	2015	NetEase
Clash Royale	$2 billion	March 2, 2016	Supercell

2019 Stats

• 82% of global mobile game downloads in Q3 of 2019 were for games from the top 1% of publishers (Sensor Tower, Nov 2019)

• 95% of global mobile game revenue in Q3 of 2019 came from games from the top 1% of publishers (Sensor Tower, Nov 2019)

• Mobile and tablet games are a common way for children to be introduced to gaming, with 41% of 7-9 year-olds in the US playing games on smartphones and 55% on tablets (SuperData, Nov 2019)

• 2.4 billion people in the world will have played mobile games in 2019 (Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• 1 in 2 mobile app users have opened a game app in the past week (Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• Games is the 3rd most popular category of app, behind social media and shopping and ahead of music/audio, video streaming and current affairs (Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• Among 18-20 year-olds, games is the 2nd most popular catagory of app, with 66% of people in this age range opening a game app at least once a week (Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• 51% of players of mobile games are female and 49% are male. However, there a differences between genres with 74% of players of shooting games male and 66% of players of puzzle games female.(Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• The average age of someone who plays mobile games is 36 (Newzoo, Oct 2019)

• Global app store consumer spend reached $101bn in 2018, up 75% from 2016. Games accounted for 74% of consumer spend. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• Worldwide consumer spend on mobile games increased 13% year-on-year from 2017 to 2018. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• Mobile gaming will reach 60% market share of overall consumer games spend in 2019, up 35 percentage points from 2013. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• China, the US and Japan are the top markets for mobile gaming consumer spend and accounted for 75% of spend in 2018. (App Annie, Jan 2019)
  • The UK is the 6th largest market in terms of mobile games revenues, after South Korea and Germany.

• In 2018, Candy Crush Saga retained a stronghold among Western markets. Pokémon GO popularized location-based AR gaming in 2016, and two years later still remained one of the most used games in the world, due in part to feature innovations like social gaming, peer-vs-peer trainer battling and events. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• The top 5 parent companies for global consumer spend on mobile in 2018 were all games companies: Tencent, NetEase, Activision Blizzard, BANDAI NAMCO and Netmarble, respectively. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• In 2018, game-streaming platform Twitch ranked in the top 5 streaming services by time spent in Canada, Brazil, US, Australia, South Korea and France. (App Annie, Jan 2019)

• Global mobile spend across games and other apps grew +22.7% to $71.3bn in 2018, up from $58.1bn in 2017. (Sensor Tower, Jan 2018)
  • Apple App Store revenues grew +20.4% to $46.6bn in 2018, which was 88% than spent on Google Play in the same period.
  • Google Play revenues grew +27.3% to $24.8bn in 2018

• While Apple's App Store revenues far exceeded those of Google Play in 2018, Google Play saw 2.6 times as many app and game installs in the same period, increasing 3% to 75.7bn installs in comparison to 29.6bn installs from the App Store, which increased 6.6.%. (Sensor Tower, Jan 2018)

• Global mobile game revenues reached a combined $54.7bn across Apple's App Store and Google Play, increasing +15.2% from 2017. Mobile game revenues represented 77% of all global mobile app revenues. (Sensor Tower, Jan 2018)
  • Apple's App Store revenues increased +10% to $33.2bn in 2018
  • Google Play revenues increased +24.2% to $21.5bn in 2018

• Global mobile game downloads grew +6.4% to 38.3bn installs across Apple's App Store and Google Play in 2018. (Sensor Tower, Jan 2018)
  • Despite significantly greater revenues, Apple's App Store saw 8.9bn game installs in 2018 (+6.2%) in comparison to Google Play's 29.4bn (+6.4%).

2018 Stats

• Across the global market, consumers will spend $92.1 billion on apps in 2018. More than three-quarters (76%) of these revenues will be generated by mobile games, while 24% will come from non-game apps (Newzoo, Sep 2018)

• Mobile gaming is expected to be $106.4billion by 2021. Remarkably, this has not significantly negatively affected revenues from PC or console markets. (Newzoo, Apr 2018)

• Consumers spent $14B more on mobile games in 2017 ($59.2bn) than in 2016. Games such as Arena of Valor and Fantasy Westward Journey from Asian publishers like Tencent and NetEase contributed to a 31% year-over-year growth for the worldwide mobile market. (Superdata, Jan 2018)

• In 2017 the global mobile market $59.2bn) was dominated by the Asian market, comprising $36bn in revenues, compared to $9.1bn in North America and $5.9bn in Europe. (Superdata, Jan 2018)

• The globally top-earning mobile games by revenues in 2017 were Tencent’s Arena of Valor ($1.9bn), NetEase’s Fantasy Westward Journey ($1.5bn) and Mixi’s Monster Strike ($1.3bn). The leading Western games in joint fourth place were Supercell’s Clash Royale and Clash of Clans (both $1.2bn). The complete top ten can be seen here. (Superdata, Jan 2018)

2017 Stats

• 21.8 billion apps were downloaded from Apple’s App Store and Google Play in Q1 2017-18, a 15.3% increase from the same quarter the previous year. Google Play accounted for the majority of the downloads, up 21.4% to 15.3bn, over double the App Store’s 6.5bn downloads. (Sensor Tower, Aug 2017)

• In Q1 2017-18, games were by far the most downloaded type of app in both Google Play and the App Store. 6.64bn games were downloaded from Google play in the period, up 26% on the previous year. In the App Store, 1.9bn games were downloaded, an increase of 1.6% year-on-year. (Sensor Tower, Aug 2017)

• Niantic’s Pokémon GO surpassed 65 million monthly active users in April 2017. (Niantic, Apr 2017)

• Consumer spend across all mobile app stores will grow at 18% CAGR from $61.8bn in 2016 to reach $139bn by 2021. Games continue to represent the majority of this revenue during the forecast period, growing from $50bn in 2016 to $105bn in 2021. (App Annie, June 2017)

• In 2016, games represented 11% of time spent in Android apps and 39% of all app downloads, yet generated 81% of consumer spend via stores. (App Annie, March 2017)

• The mobile Augmented Reality market could hit over a billion users and $60 billion revenue globally by 2021. (Digi-Capital, June 2017)

• In 2016, games generated 75% of iOS App Store revenue, and 90% of Google Play revenue. (App Annie, March 2017)

• Average revenue per user (ARPU) has significantly increased in the world’s larger markets. In Japan, the top 30 iPhone games monetized over twice as effectively as the top 30 in the United States, increasing from $17 to $30 from Q4 2015 to Q4 2016. The UK saw some increased in ARPU, but is still some distance behind other markets on this metric. (App Annie, March 2017)

• Mobile gaming is gaining momentum globally and disrupting the traditional industry. By 2014, mobile gaming apps saw greater consumer spend than consoles and PC/Mac games. By 2016, mobile increased its lead, with spend at over 25% higher than PC and Mac gaming, and more than double game consoles in 2016. (App Annie, Feb 2017)

• Niantic’s ‘Pokémon GO’, released on 6th July 2016 achieved over $950m in consumer spend by the end of 2016. It achieved reaching $800 million in consumer spend in 110 days, 2.3x faster than King’s ‘Candy Crush Saga’. For context, the total consumer spend on ‘Pokémon GO’ exceeded the total worldwide box office gross of ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’. (App Annie, Jan 2017)

• China’s Tencent were the No.1 company for combined iOS and Android game revenues in 2016, ahead of Finland’s Supercell (who are 84% owned by Tencent) and NetEase. MZ and Activision Blizzard make up the rest of the top 5. Electronic Arts was the top company for worldwide combines iOS and Android game downloads in 2016. (App Annie, Jan 2017)

• Android phone users worldwide (excluding China) spent nearly 900bn hours in apps in 2016, an increase of 150bn hours from 2015. (App Annie, Jan 2017)

• Apple’s App Store revenues increased by 40% in 2016 to $20bn, with the two largest contributors to growth being Pokémon Go and Super Mario Run, the latter of which was the most downloaded app on Christmas and New Year’s Day. (Gamasutra, Jan 2017)

• January 1st 2017 was the largest day of sales ever recorded for Apple’s App Store, with $240m spent. (Gamasutra, Jan 2017)

2016 Stats

• The top 5 mobile games globally accounted for 13% ($5.4bn) of the mobile market ($40.6bn). Three games broke the billion dollar mark: Mixi’s Monster Strike ($1.3bn)) and Supercell’s Clash of the Clans ($1.2bn) and Clash Royale ($1.1bn). (SuperData, Dec 2016)

• The Asian market makes up over half ($24.9bn) of global mobile revenue ($40.6bn). North America and Europe make up a distant second and third ($6.9bn and $5.7bn, respectively). (SuperData, Dec 2016)

• Mobile gaming accounting for 40% of all revenues made by the top 10 companies in the first half of 2016, up from 34% in the same period of 2015. (Newzoo, Oct 2016)

• Tencent, the number one gaming company in the world, recorded revenues of $5.3 billion in the first 6 months of 2016, up from $4.1 billion the year before. Its position at the top of the ranking will be solidified even further following the acquisition of Supercell. Between them, they will likely end this year with around $13 billion in game revenues. (Newzoo, Oct 2016)

• In 2015, 1,436 mobile games generated more than $1m of iOS revenues (net, excluding the 30% platform fee). 191 games generated over $10m and 27 generated more than $100. (Newzoo, July 2016)

• Mobile gaming will generate greater global revenues ($36.9bn) than PC gaming ($31.9bn) for the first time in 2016. (Newzoo, July 2016)

• Cumulative annual growth in the global mobile market between 2015-2019 is expected to be 14.6%, significantly outpacing the rest of the market at 6.6%. (Newzoo, July 2016)

• In April 2016, the top 10 mobile publishers accounted for 44% of iOS App Store and 42% of Google Play revenues. (Newzoo, July 2016)

• In Q1 2016, 6.65 billion games were downloaded from iOS and Google Play (1.95bn and 4.7bn respectively). The most downloaded game worldwide was ‘Piano Tiles 2’ (Clean Master Games) and ‘Clash Royale’ (Supercell) made the worldwide top 10 for downloads despite launching two months into the quarter, as well as being the fastest game ever to No. 1 in revenue. (SensorTower, Apr 2016)

• The most installed iOS app in the US for Q1 2016 was ‘Color Switch’, an indie game by Marc Lejeune, made in just two weeks. (SensorTower, Apr 2016)

2015 Stats

• While 70% of app store revenue for Apple and Google originates from games, 95% of revenues from mobile games come from the freemium model. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• 21m people who downloaded a free or freemium game in Mar-May 2015, while 3m downloaded a paid game. 42% of free/freemium players downloaded 2 to 3 games, while 55% of those who downloaded a paid/paidmium game acquired only 1. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• 50% of players only played titles that were not on the list of top grossing and most popular games. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• 78% of freemium players didn’t make any in-app purchase, so 22% did. This share of paying customers varies from company to company, for example 4% of King’s monthly unique users made in-app purchases. The average expenditure of paying users reached £3/month, and spend is concentrated with nearly half made it in a single game. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• European developers generate more than two thirds of their revenues (35%) outside of the EU-28, in markets such as the USA, China and Japan. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• 6 out of 10 apps in the iOS and Google Play stores were made by companies headquartered in Europe. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)

• The UK is the EU country with the highest mobile games jobs in the EU-28, with 5,000 full-time employees. (Deloitte and ISFE Mobile Games in Europe, Sept 2015)