Here are last month’s top grossing mobile games worldwide, according to Appmagic data.
These numbers are estimates of developer earnings from IAP, and do not include Apple and Google’s 30% cut or ad revenue.
There’s commentary on which way the biggest earners are trending and other interesting tidbits from the top 20 and beyond below.
Honor of Kings holds on to its title of top grossing game despite losing nearly $15m in month-on-month IAP revenue, such is its dominance at the top of this chart.
Monopoly Go’s remarkable run has boosted it into second spot this month, leapfrogging PUBG Mobile along the way. With nearly $88m earned in September, it is up around $8m on August’s total despite a drop in downloads last month.
PUBG Mobile is down a little month-on-month after an uneven patch that saw it drop to around $72m in June, then rebound to almost $108m in August. September’s $83m shows the game is settling a bit, but overall it is quite far off the $100m+ it had been earning in 2022 and early 2023.
After a wild growth spurt, Royal Match seems to have levelled out at around $80m per month. July remains its record month with $84.3m earned, but the match 3 contender’s earnings are down a little for the second month running, and its downloads are declining a bit too.
Honkai: Star Rail keeps fifth spot despite losing around $8m in month-on-month IAP revenue; those monitoring the relationship between Star Rail and sister title Genshin Impact will note that the older title gained $10m in revenue month-on-month, rising five places as a result. A coincidence, perhaps, but as we’ve reported before there does appear to be a close relationship between the two games’ earning power.
Sandwiched in between the two Mihoyo titles is King’s Candy Crush Saga, which holds onto sixth spot despite another month-on-month revenue decline – its sixth drop in a row after it earned a huge $91m in January. The $69.3m it earned in September is the lowest monthly total since February 2022.
Roblox IAP revenue in September was its lowest since November 2022 and down for the second month running, though broadly in line with the high sixties-low seventy mililon bracket it typically occupies.
Justice Mobile is another title that held its position in the rankings despite a big drop in revenue – from nearly $82m in August to almost $64m in September. The China-only Netease MMO is still relatively new, though, so it’ll likely take a few more months to settle into a regular pattern.
Speaking of regular patterns: Coin Master posted practically the same revenue as in August last month, but September’s $55m is notably down from the $60-65m range it usually inhabits.
September’s top grossing mobile games 11-20
11. Pokémon Go (Niantic): $49.20m
12. Gardenscapes (Playrix): $45.95m
13. Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle (Bandai Namco): $41.2m
14. Uma Musume Pretty Derby (Cygames): $38.51m
15. Puzzle & Dragons (GungHo): $34.09m
16. Whiteout Survival (Century Games): $33.2m
17. Homescapes (Playrix): $32.36m
18. Goddess of Victory: Nikke (Tencent): $32.1m
19. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Lingxi Games): $31.94m
20. Monster Strike (Xflag): $31.64m
Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle has a very spiky revenue profile, and once again leapt up into the top contenders as a result of live ops. It’s up by ~$15m month-on-month to $41.3m.
Uma Musume Pretty Derby is on the rise again after a few months earning around $20-25m – September’s total of $38.5m is its best haul since March.
Puzzle & Dragons is on the comeback trail too, after a major blip in August when it earned ‘just’ $12m – the lowest total recorded in Appmagic’s data, which goes back to January 2015. September’s IAP earnings of $34m are broadly in line with what the game’s been earning monthly since January 2022.
Continuing the comeback theme is Goddess of Victory: Nikke, which added $12m in month-on-month revenue to hit $32m in September, leaping up the rankings by 13 places. Same deal with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which also gained around $12m in month-on-month earnings.
Outside the top 20, it’s worth keeping an eye on Netease’s China-only arcade basketball game All Star Streetball Party. It launched at the end of August and made a handsome $19.5m in its first full month on the market from China alone. The new Netease game ended the month just ahead of Niantic and Capcom’s Monster Hunter Now, which launched on September 14 and racked up $19.1m by the end of the month.
