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 minus the fluff.
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US App Store economy is worth over $400bn, says Apple
Apple claims to have facilitated over $400bn in developer sales and billings in 2024. $53bn of the total is made up of “digital goods and services” – and a good chunk of that $53bn likely gaming in-app purchases.
The iPhone maker’s recent blog post appears to be an effort to counter some of the bad press it has received around the US court ruling that opened the US App Store up to web payments.
Apple claims for that over 90% of the $400bn in 2024 billings, developers did not pay Apple a commission. Earnings of US developers have more than doubled in the last five years too, it said.
The size of the App Store ecosystem has nearly tripled from $142bn in 2019 to $406bn last year, says the research commissioned by Apple, and small developers have seen earnings rise by 76 percent between 2021 and 2024.
The $400bn+ breaks down as $277bn from physical goods and services, $75bn from in-app advertising and $53bn from digital goods and services. Apple also claims to support over 2.9m jobs across the US through the iOS app economy.
Puzzlers pull in over $4bn year-to-date
Appmagic says IAP revenue from puzzle games has passed $4bn year-to-date.
Match 3 leads the way, of course, with $2bn of that total. Merge has risen significantly recently to $712m YTD, while ‘match 2 blast’ is third with $243m. Match 3D appears to have run out of steam a little, declining to $165m. ‘Physics puzzle’ was also cited as one of the fastest-growing puzzle subgenres.
In an accompanying blog, Appmagic also broke down some of the most efffective live ops for driving that revenue, including collectible sticker or stamp albums, time-limited passes and milestone events.
Mobile market grows 4%, maintains 58% share
The mobile gaming market saw 4.1% year-on-year growth in 2024, says Ampere Analysis. Mobile market share stayed at 58%, and Ampere forecasts growth of 2-3% for the next couple of years, driven by growth outside of Western markets, Japan and South Korea. Instant and browser games will steal away some players, too.
Ampere also outlined several potential growth areas, noting opportunities in the growing Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia regions. They are set to see a combined market growth of $1.3bn in the next two years, it said.
The data firm also estimated that US games market had “lost or disengaged” around 21m players since 2021. Staying in the US, Ampere added that female players aged 16-25 and the over 55s remain underserved demographics.
Asia & MENA to generate $96bn by 2029
Revenue generated from game software and services in the Asia and MENA game markets is on track to reach $96bn in 2029, according to a new report from Niko Partners. That’s up from $86.6bn in 2024 and an estimated $87.9bn in 2025.
China, Japan and South Korea are expected to command a 90.1% share of total Asia and MENA revenue this year, and an 88.7% share in 2029. Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) is forecast to have a 6.2% overall market share this year, followed by MENA-3 (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE) with 2.5% and India with 1.2%. Thailand, which is Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing market, is expected to hit $2.4bn in player spending by 2029.
There were 1.7bn gamers in Asia and MENA in 2024, according to Niko’s Market Model reports. That figure is expected to grow to 2bn – more than the rest of the world combined – by 2029.
The number of gamers in India, which is the fastest growing market the research firm tracks, is forecast to rise by 250m over the next five years to reach 724m.
East Side Q1 revenue down 11%
East Side Games has reported revenue of CAD 18.5m ($13.5m) for Q1, which was down 11% year-over-year.
Adjusted EBITDA for the three months ended on March 31 declined 51% YoY to CAD $2m ($1.5m). It also posted a loss of CAD 579k ($423k), compared to a profit of CAD 1.9m ($1.4m) in Q1 last year.
Across East Side’s games portfolio, DAU dropped by 14% YoY to 209,499, MAU fell 10.7% to 854,374, and ARPDAU increased by 5.3% to CAD $0.99 ($0.72).
The company’s earnings report highlighted growing traction for RuPaul’s Drag Race: Match Queen, which has soft launched head of a global release in June. East Side said it has already become its top-performing match game after achieving “some of the strongest retention numbers seen in our company’s history”.
Yarnhub gets $2.1m in crowdfunding
YouTube channels Yarnhub and Blue Paw Print have secured over $2.1m in crowdfunding to build debut game Brass Rain. Led by EA and Rovio veteran Cyril Barrow, the WWII combat sim has just moved into production, and is coming to PC and mobile.
