Data digest: Pokémon Go turns 10, June’s top performers, funding news, Supercity stats, more

 

Every Wednesday, we break down the latest data, research, and financial results into digestible chunks.

Read on for the numbers you need to know about without the fluff.

This column is sponsored by Xsolla, offering the #1 web shop solution for mobile games that generates more value, purchases, and revenue. Get started here.

Pokémon Go at 10: by the numbers

This week marks Pokémon Go’s tenth anniversary. In those ten years. Niantic says its seminal augmented-reality exploration game has been downloaded over a billion times (AppMagic’s tracking says 710m).

AppMagic estimates suggest Niantic has earned $6.37bn in IAP revenue since launch, though webshop revenue is not accounted for. The data firm’s numbers also suggest around 39% of the game’s lifetime revenue has come from players in the US and 30% from Japan, with a big drop to the next biggest territory, Germany, at 5%. The UK, Canada, Taiwan and Australia are each at around 2-3% of lifetime earnings.

By downloads, the lifetime split shows the US top with 21%, followed by India (9%), Brazil (8%), Mexico (7%) and Indonesia, South Korea and Japan on 4-5%.

Pokémon Go’s top-earning periods were around launch, when the game earned an incredible $126m in both July and August 2016, again according to AppMagic estimates. Its all-time highest earning month was in July 2021, when Niantic earned an estimated $128m from the game in a single month.

More recently, Pokémon Go has been earning roughly $30m per month in IAP, but is likely to be earning much more through its webshop.

As part of last year’s $3.5bn deal, Scopely acquired all of Niantic’s game teams, including companion apps and services Campfire and Wayfarer. Those teams were rebranded this week as Scopely Explore.

June’s top grossing games worldwide

According to Sensor Tower, Century Games’ Whiteout Survival was June’s top grossing game in June 2026, while Roblox led the charge by downloads.

When it comes to revenue growth ranking, Whiteout Survival tops the list, followed by Netmarble’s SOL: enchant and eFootball, which reports a particularly strong month, likely due to the FIFA 2026 World Cup. Honor of Kings saw good traction via its Unbound Destiny update, and Gossip Harbor’s live narrative-driven events resulted in a strong performance, too.

It’s Roblox, however, that takes first place among the most downloaded games, which also capitalised on the World Cup with FIFA Super Soccer. There were three different arrows games in the top ten downloads chart for June, while Meowdoku, Pokémon Champions and Easybrain’s Arrow Puzzle were the fastest-rising titles last month.

Overall, global mobile game downloads reached 3.64bn in the month of June, down 3.6 percent month-over-month. India led with the highest number of downloads (674m) – 18.5 percent of all downloads for the month – followed by the United States (7.8%) and Brazil (6.2%), respectively.

$1m Google Play Indie Games Fund launches in Africa

Google has launched a $1m fund to support 10 local indie game studios in Africa across 32 markets and “help scale their games and reach a global audience.”

The fund offers between $50,000 and $200,000 per studio, hands-on mentorship, and technical guidance to indie developers based in sub-Saharan Africa who have launched a game on mobile, PC, or console. Click here for more.

AI-native game engine company Kantrip raises $2.75m

Kantrip, an AI-native game engine and live-ops platform, has raised $2.75m in a round co-led by Arcadia Gaming Partners and 20VC. While the alpha launch isn’t expected until later this year, founder and CEO Luke McCarthy confirmed on LinkedIn that “we’re already building games in the engine.”

Supercity marks 15 years, 40m installs and over $100m in revenue

City-building life-sim Supercity is 15 years old. To mark the milestone, developer Playkot shared that since its July 1 launch, SuperCity has generated $100m in revenue across 40 million installs worldwide.

Scroll to Top