There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Our regular data digest column breaks it all down into digestible chunks.
Read on for the numbers you need to know about minus the fluff.
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Honor of Kings’ western launch hits 50m downloads
Tencent’s MOBA Honor of Kings has been downloaded over 50m times outside of China. That’s according to the game’s official Twitter account, which announced this milestone just one month after its global launch in June.
Sensor Tower also reports that the game was the second most-downloaded game in the world for June 2024. Honor of Kings’ global rollout brought in $4.7m from in-app revenue from new regions; gamers in the US, Indonesia and Malaysia were the biggest spenders.
Peak Games hits $5bn lifetime earnings
Publisher Peak Games has brought in over $5bn in user spending to date. That’s according to Appmagic, which reports that Toon Blast and Toy Blast are responsible for the vast majority of the company’s income at 60% and 37% respectively. Match Factory, which launched in September 2023, is now making $15m per month from in-app revenue, too.
Game downloads up 18% in Japan
Mobile game installs in Japan rose by 18% between Q4 2023 and Q1 2023, according to a new report from Adjust and Sensor Tower. The research also shows that the country saw a 7% increase in downloads compared to 2023’s average, while the number of gaming sessions rose by 6%. This is well ahead of the global market, which has seen a 1% decline in downloads and a 4% in sessions.
Arcade games saw the largest increase of any genre in Q1 2024, with downloads increasing 38% and sessions rising 38.4%. Card titles fared well, too, with installs shooting up 40%, but sessions only managed to increase a meagre 16%.
Overall, iOS is the more popular platform for games in Japan. 55% of downloads and 66% of sessions are on Apple’s devices. The only genre where Android has more than 50% of installs and sessions was puzzle with a 61% and 50% slice of the pie respectively.
Monopoly Go’s Tycoon Racers event drove 50% revenue spike
Appmagic reports that the Tycoon Racers event for Scopely’s Monopoly Go helped drive a 50% increase in revenue. The firm’s data shows that the game went from north of $2m daily revenue up to almost $4m. The event involved players teaming up to compete in races against other players to earn additional rewards.
Mobile made $13.4bn IAP during Q2
Mobile in-game purchases totalled up to $13.4bn for Q2 2024, according to InvestGame. That’s a 2.2% decline year-on-year and a 7% drop quarter-to-quarter. Of that figure, $7.5bn came from the Top 100 titles, while the remaining $5.9bn came from other games.
The best-performing new release of the quarter was, unsurprisingly, Dungeon & Fighter: Origin, which clocked up $227m in revenue. That’s almost four times as much as the second biggest performer, Wuthering Waves from Kuro Games. InvestGame points to Asia as being the biggest source of hit titles in the mobile space.
Private investment in the games space has doubled year-on-year, hitting $1bn in Q2, while M&A activity is at $500m, down 16%. Public offerings have increased 116.7%, hitting $2.6bn for the quarter.
Snake Clash hits 50m downloads
Publisher Supercent has said in a LinkedIn post that its survival game Snake Clash has been downloaded over 50m times since its release in August 2023.
32% of mobile-only players won’t pay for games
New research from Comscore shows that 32% of US consumers who only play mobile titles are only willing to play free games. This is the largest segment of this audience, followed up by 19% chunk who are prepared to pay between $41 and $60. 77% of gamers play on more than one platform, while 62% of adults play games.
75% of ‘primarily mobile gamers’ say that adverts positively or negatively impact their gaming experience. Meanwhile, 34% of gamers who have seen product placement in a title say that it makes “the experience more real”. Finally, 45% of players who have seen ads in a game say they don’t mind them so long as they are rewarded for watching.
Stillfront bookings dip 4% in Q2
Swedish games firm Stillfront has reported a 4% decline in bookings for the second quarter of its financial year. The company brought in SEK 1.7bn ($157.9m) for the period, of which SEK 1.6bn ($148.6m) came from its ‘active portfolio’. Those titles saw their bookings drop by 2% over the quarter thanks to weaker-than-anticipated performance from Stillfront’s strategy titles – the company says that this was offset by other genres, including sim, RPG and action.
Meanwhile EBITDA fell 6.6% to SEK 649m ($60.3m). CEO Jörgen Larsson also says that staff costs have been reduced by 12%.
Stillfront is also kicking off a share buyback program worth SEK 80m ($7.42m). This is to help pay for earn-out considerations related to previous acquisitions the company has made.
Appmagic has raised $3m in funding
Data platform Appmagic has secured $3m in Series A funding. This round was led by a $2.5m investment from Gem Capital – with another $500,000 coming from Vibranium – and is designed to help the platform grow and compete with competitor Sensor Tower following its acquisition of Data.ai.
Hero Wars: Alliance hits $1.5bn revenue
Mobile RPG Hero Wars: Alliance has now made over $1.5bn in revenue since its 2017 debut. That’s according to developer Nexters, which also says that the title has been downloaded over 150m times.
