Here are last month’s top grossing mobile games based on in-app purchase earnings, according to Appmagic data.
These IAP estimates do not include ad revenue, web shop spend, Apple and Google’s 30% cut or revenue from China’s fragmented Android ecosystem.
There’s commentary on which way the biggest earners are trending, and other interesting tidbits from the top 20 and beyond below.
You can also find December’s top downloads here.
In between these monthly updates, you can keep tabs on Appmagic’s top grossing and top downloads charts anytime here.
Fittingly, Last War: Survival ends the final month of a spectacular 2024 as December’s top grossing game, helped a little by Honor of Kings’ stumble. Last War is up plenty on November’s then-record total of $122m to a new high of $147m – it pulled in $11m a year ago.
It’s interesting to note that runner-up Royal Match had posted north of $130m in monthly IAP from August through to October, but dipped to $126m in November and December. Is this just the ebb and flow of running a massive game, or because Royal Kingdom arrived and pulled away some player spend?
Like Last War, third placed Whiteout Survival has been growing fast throughout 2024, and posted another record month in December with nearly $123m in IAP (December 2023’s total was ~$47m).
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s second full month shows an expected decline from November’s ~$143m to $118m, but it’s a game that’s set to be a regular presence in the top grossing charts. The Pokémon brand has incredible staying power, a wealth of characters to roll out in updates and a forerunner in Pokémon Go, whose success can perhaps be leaned upon for Dena’s own live ops roadmap.
School being out for Christmas saw Roblox earnings spike as expected in December, a best-ever total for IAP earnings. Perhaps, as Roblox likes to insist, its audience is indeed ‘ageing up’ and spending more as a result.
And so to Honor of Kings, which frankly looks weird anywhere other than the top one or two spots. It managed ‘just’ $100m in December 2024, but fellow chart nerds may already have noticed that its earnings have dipped in November and December for the last few years too. Frankly, we’ve no idea why. If you know, please explain via email.
Monopoly Go has been hovering around the $100m monthly IAP earnings mark since June 2024, and the same is true of December’s total. It is quite a bit down year-on-year from December 2023’s massive $174m, but of course this is Scopely – so it may well be coining it in through the game’s ‘Tycoon Club’ webshop. ‘Membership’ was offered to VIP players in early 2024, and was made available to all in October 2024.
Candy Crush Saga ends 2024 up on its 2023 performance, when it performed really well for the first half of the year and fell off badly near the end. It was hovering around the $90m mark for most of last year, and pulled in nearly $92m in December 2024.
There’s a huge gap of ~$30m to the next contender, Tencent monster DnF Mobile, which earned all of its $60m+ during December 2024 from iOS players in China, just like every month. It returned to the top ten last month after a post-launch wobble that saw it dip badly in October and November.
In tenth, Coin Master’s about as consistent as these top performing games get – it has been racking up about $60m a month in IAP since February 2022. Given their similarities, you might think Monopoly Go’s arrival would have dented Coin Master’s earnings, but no – perhaps there’s enough room in the market for more variants on this type of game.
December’s top grossing mobile games: 11-20
11. PUBG Mobile (Tencent): $53m
12. Brawl Stars (Supercell): $45m
13. Love and Deepspace (Paper Games): $42m
14. Gardenscapes (Playrix): $41.5m
15. Pokémon Go (Niantic): $41m
16. Honkai: Star Rail (Mihoyo): $39m
17. Township (Playrix): $38m
18. Zenless Zone Zero (Mihoyo): $36m
19. Monster Strike (Xflag): $34m
20. TfT: Golden Spatula (Tencent): $32m
Like (one of) Tencent’s other monster mobile games, PUBG Mobile dropped off badly in December, down to $53m last month having earned over $88m in November (Is it a China/December thing…? Please explain)
It’s also fun to look at Brawl Stars’ previous December to see the scale of the game’s comeback – in 2023 it pulled in a cool $20m in IAP, but a year later it’s at just over $45m. But it was still a relatively soft month for the game by 2024 standards – it passed $60m in monthly IAP earnings several times last year.
Love and Deepspace continues to keep growing, while there are big month-on-month rises for Mihoyo duo Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero plus evergreen title Fate/Grand Order. Monster Strike and TfT: Golden Spatula also saw notable month-on-month boosts, while Clash of Clans, Homescapes, Fishdom, eFootball and Evony each saw moderate drops.
Habby’s Capybara Go keeps rising, and is up to 31st spot having earned over $23m in IAPs last month. It’s also worth mentioning new entry Girls Frontline 2: Exilium, a game we daren’t Google but has done well with nearly $19m earned in its first full month on the chart.
