Mobile Games Market 2024

The mobile games market, as the most profitable segment of the app market, will always be the object of close attention of all participants, and we were no exception. Let's analyze what notes we ended last year and are living through the current one.

Last year's results of the mobile games market

The top 10 most profitable apps for 2023 speaks for itself:

On Google Play, six of these ten are mobile games. On the App Store there is parity, 50/50.

As for profitability by category, the picture is even more filled with the gaming segment:

For the two platforms, mobile games dominate the categories. But downloads and income of the entire market traditionally look like this: apps have more installations, and games are the main source of income:

What else will the mobile gaming market remember in 2023, and what influenced our current realities:

1. Ubiquitous AI - from image generation to content and assistants.
2. The average user time with the device is 5 hours a day.
3. Decrease in consumer spending growth in 2023 due to crisis events, market maturity and uncertainty of the future.
4. A decrease in downloads in the field of mobile games, which is related to the previous point. Users are becoming more demanding, and developers can no longer count on the wow effect of simply releasing a game.
5. Popular games continue to be major players and revenue generators for the market.
6. Age and gender preferences are clearly defined for the current year - the younger generation is inclined towards racing and RPGs, older users play solitaire, match 3 and puzzles. Men prefer sports simulators and RPGs, while women prefer crosswords and puzzles.
7. Despite the dominance of popular games in the market, new genres are changing the rules of the game. Hyper-casual games that can compete with strategy and role-playing games are gaining popularity. And innovative genres, such as Avatar Life, have every chance of interest from gamers.

Geography of mobile game market downloads

Google Play is showing growing popularity for mobile game downloads in India and Brazil, with Indonesia ranking fourth. This is very interesting, since emerging markets are fertile ground for new star projects. Users on the wave of smartphone adoption are still not as sophisticated and demanding as those in the US market. Another peculiarity of this trend is that these countries are characterized by a commitment to Android, but the United States is rightfully considered the domain of iOS.

The App Store traditionally leads the US, with Brazil and Indonesia close behind. We remind you that we are now talking about downloading mobile games.

The report does not contain analytics for China, but thanks to data.ai we can confidently say that iOS, for certain reasons, dominates there and is only slightly inferior to the United States in terms of installations.

Geography of mobile games market revenue

For the past year in a row, the United States has been leading the ranking in terms of user spending on mobile games, both on the App Store and on Google Play.

Such similarity is difficult to find in the rest of the ratings, but as for revenue, the American market is leading for both platforms, Japan is a big fan of mobile gaming, and South Korea and Germany close the top three, replacing each other depending on the store.

Mobile game genres 2023-2024

According to the Mobile Gaming report from Data.ai, the top subgenres for consumer spending in 2023 remained the same as last year:

• 4X March Battle (strategy)
• MMORPG
• team battle (RPG)
• slot machines (casinos)

However, the key markets for these games differ. In the US, the top subgenres were slots and 4X March Battle, while in South Korea and Japan, MMORPG and team combat were the top subgenres, respectively. In 2023, these four subgenres accounted for more than a third of global consumer spending on mobile games.

Leaders among mobile games in 2023

The market has already seen an interesting trend - more than a third of the thousand most downloaded mobile games are games released three or more years ago. Only a little more than 10% of this thousand are new to the market. But not everything is so sad, in terms of the most profitable games in the United States, the number of new games has increased, interrupting the protracted decline of the last three years.

But although new faces have appeared from the champions table on Google Play, it’s more about rearranging places and popularity in the regions.

The situation is similar on the App Store, but it is interesting that in the same countries, user preferences still differ.   Pokemon Go remained in the top five favorites on the US App Store. In Japan, the two leaders differ from the ranking of Android devices. Each time we receive confirmation of the fact that the behavior and preferences of users in one country can vary within stores.

The ranking of the three most profitable countries has undergone changes as you see.

If we mention the overall picture, the most profitable games for 2023 were:

1. Candy Crush Saga
2. Honor of Kings
3. ROBLOX

Market prospects in 2024

Mobile games remain and will remain the driving force of the market and its most profitable part. And based on analytical data, we can say that the prospects for the mobile games market in 2024 look very promising. The market is expected to continue to grow due to innovation, expanding audiences and new monetization models. However, along with all the positive trends, we will have to cope with increasing competition and new challenges in the field of safety and regulation.

More demanding and mature users - now we are fighting not only with our competitors, but also trying to meet the growing demands and expectations of users.

New markets and localization - changes in the geography of download ratings provide a chance for new and not yet very developed markets, where entry for new and interesting products is easier than in popular countries. Thus, by expanding the localization of our games, we have a greater chance of success.

Gamification in other areas - Gamification is used not only in games, but also in education, fitness and other areas. This expands opportunities for game developers and attracts new audiences.

ASO for mobile games remains a key and basic approach in building a successful strategy. Promotion and advertising are like puzzles of one puzzle, from which a picture of visibility is formed with the first line in the search.

Optimize and achieve your goals💙