There’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through every week.
So every Wednesday we’re here to break it all down into digestible chunks: data drop has just the numbers you need to know about, minus the fluff.
This column is sponsored by MobileAction, the premier mobile UA optimization platform. Contact us to learn how our campaign management and app store marketing intelligence tools can help you generate more downloads efficiently.
Datapoints from the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard ruling
A couple of nuggets in this: “$113 billion of the game industry’s total revenues of $210 billion came from mobile gaming in 2020”, says one part, though it’s unclear where exactly the figure is from.
More interestingly: “Recently, COD: Mobile reached 150 million monthly [active] users.” (Note: the court document actually reads “monthly annual users”, which we assume is a typo…)
Incidentally, a quick look at the Appmagic data suggests COD: Mobile stands at around 332m lifetime downloads and $1.25bn in revenue.
Japan and Korea’s games revenue
This datapoint surfaced as part of Asian gaming market analyst Niko Partners’ latest mailout – the firm says Japan and Korea were the third and fourth largest games markets by revenue in 2022, with Japan nearly double Korea’s market size – $17.9bn versus $9.8bn.
AppsFlyer’s bold ad spend forecast
“Global app install ad spend is projected to rise 20% to $94.9bn in 2025,” says a new AppsFlyer report. It is basing that prediction on an overall market recovery after several years of turbulence that have included COVID, ATT, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the global economic downturn.
“Because a financial recovery is only expected by the second half of 2024, we believe that a strong H2 will lead to a 7% overall growth for that year, followed by a strong 2025 when we predict a 13% growth to $94.9 billion,” says the report.
It goes on to predict that marketers will scale up campaigns as they gain confidence working within the new targeting climate, get familiar with Apple and Google’s new frameworks and use more ‘privacy enhancing technology’ (PETs) to get results.
“Massive demand in developing countries” is also cited as a factor in the growth forecast, with the number of smartphones “expected to increase 13% worldwide between 2022 and 2025”.
AppsFlyer also provided a split of app install ad spend by region, based on data from Jan 2022-May 2023:
Remote, hybrid or on-site working?
Deconstructor of Fun’s recent community survey threw up some interesting results, with each question getting over 400 responses from the group of seasoned industry execs.
Over half – 57.2% – of the DoF community are either working fully remotely (37.1%) or remotely with occasional trips to the office (20.1%).
36.6% of respondents said a pay rise is the best way to increase job satisfaction, followed by working on an interesting project (16.7%), a better work/life balance (13.8%) and having a different or better manager (8.6%).
Most of those surveyed, 41.4%, believed they would continue to work fully remotely, with just over a quarter believing that they’d continue to work two or fewer days at the office per week.
The top iOS advertisers from the last week
This column’s sponsor MobileAction sent us this list of the top ten biggest ad spenders from the last week on iOS, according to its own data:
Perhaps unsurprising to see Royal Match and Candy Crush Saga at the top, but note the sudden rise of Hungry Studios’ Block Blast Adventure Master, which has been quietly generating a ton of downloads. Appmagic says it just passed 90m lifetime downloads.
