Now we’ve got six months of 2024 data, we’ve been digging through Appmagic to see how the mobile games business looked during the first half of the year.
First, the usual caveats: Appmagic’s revenue estimates are based on publisher payout, and do not include Apple or Google’s 30%. Of course, they do not include ad revenue or webshop revenue either, nor China’s fragmented Android ecosystem.
Still, these numbers are broadly indicative of the shape and size of IAP earnings.
For a breakdown of the top grossing games, top game downloads and top publishers by downloads of 2024 so far, head through the links.
Six months in, and of course Tencent is on top. But look at Scopely: the second biggest publisher in the business by these IAP revenue estimates.
It’s worth adding a bit of context here: in 2022’s full-year data, Appmagic says Scopely was the 20th biggest publisher by IAP revenue with $635m.
That was before Monopoly Go, of course. Today, the US label has earned over $900m and we’re only halfway through 2024, plus there’s the added intrigue of its webshop revenue, which is apparently pretty strong. There’s also any ad revenue it may be raking in from other games in its portfolio.
So it’s safe to assume the real Scopely figure is much higher than the $903m stated here. There’s been a lot less noise around Monopoly Go’s wild success lately, but there’s no question it has utterly transformed the company – and let’s not forget that Stumble Guys will have also contributed a decent chunk of revenue too (that game also has console SKUs whose revenue is not included here, of course).
NetEase, Playrix and King revenue appears broadly steady, but Supercell is the other notable riser here. The Finnish firm was earning around $60-65m per month for most of 2023, but that Brawl Stars revival has made all the graphs point upward again, with Supercell raking in ~$130m per month since April. We’ll see what part Squad Busters has to play too in the next few months, though early indications suggest it may not be as significant as the firm may have wanted.
Dream Games’ rise throughout 2023 has levelled out for the first half of 2024, with Royal Match pushing the Turkish firm to generate around $100m per month, having started from zero in 2021. Quite a ride.
Roblox continues to rise a bit, but the bigger mover is Century Games, which has been tearing it up for all of 2023 and has continued to do so into the first half of 2024. The graph has pointed aggressively upwards for the Whiteout Survival maker since January 2023, when it earned about $22m; last month, it earned around $77m. Bosh.
2024’s top grossing publishers so far, 11-20:
11. Bandai Namco (Japan): $450m
12. FirstFun (Hong Kong): $449m
13. Moon Active (Israel): $390m
14. Zynga (USA): $372m
15. Niantic (USA): $341m
16. Konami (Japan): $330m
17. Joy Net Games (China): $298m
18. Peak Games (Turkey) $285m
19. 37Games (China): $283m
20. NCsoft (South Korea): $256m
There’s no doubting the star performer in the 11-20 bracket – FirstFun has come from nowhere in 2023 to leapfrog the likes of Moon Active, Zynga and Niantic to become the 12th top grosser by IAP of 2024 so far. Practically all of that money is from LastWar, of course.
A look at the broad trendlines for the other publishers here shows Bandai Namco, Moon Active, Zynga, 37Games and NCsoft gently drifting downwards, while both Niantic and Konami seem to be dipping after seeing big revenue spikes at the end of 2023 and in early 2024.
Joy Net Games already had a successful game out there, an MMO that’s big in South Korea and Japan, but the arrival of Legend of Mushroom has caused a mighty revenue spike for the firm that has boosted it into 17th spot here. And as with many of the companies here, there’s more to the story if you consider admon as well.
Match Factory is really doing the business for Peak. The trendlines suggest it had, ahem, peaked back in 2020, with gently declining revenue until the arrival of Match Factory in October 2023. At that point, the company’s IAP revenue rose sharply, regularly hitting around $45m in monthly IAP earnings ever since March 2024.
