Adjust & data.ai: The Mobile Gaming market in Japan in 2023
Revenue, downloads, user behavior, retention, and audience numbers have been collected.
General numbers
The revenue from mobile apps in Q1 2023 in Japan was $4.65B. It’s a 13% increase compared to Q4 2022.
ATT Opt-in in Japan is lower than the world benchmark. In games, 30% of people agree with their personal data usage.
Mobile games revenue
It’s expected that Japanese gamers will spend $12.6B on mobile games in 2023.
In Q1 2023 people of Japan already spent $3.41B on mobile games. 13% more than in Q4 2022. Games revenue growth is equal to the overall app revenue growth.
Hypercasual games (+56% QoQ) and Simulation genre (+30% QoQ) are the fastest-growing revenue segments.
Japanese gamer is the leader in the world of paying users. On average, one iOS user is spending $10.3 per month (first place in the world); a Japanese Android user spent on games is about $9.8 monthly (second place in the world).
Mobile games downloads
Downloads in Q1 2023 increased by 12% compared to the previous quarter. The growth dynamics are higher than the market average by 3 percentage points.
Japan is one of the few markets where iOS is dominating by downloads (61% of the overall amount). Android is responsible for 39%.
Organic traffic in Japan in Q1 2023 decreased. The average by all genres ratio between paid to organic traffic dropped from 0.73 to 0.7.
RPG is the most popular genre in the country. It’s responsible for 13% of all downloads.
User behavior in mobile games
Median D1 Retention in Q1 2023 was 27%; D3 Retention - 18%; D7 Retention - 12%; D30 Retention - 5%.
RPG titles have the highest D1 Retention - 32%. Simulation (30%) and Puzzles (28%) are next.
The number of sessions in Q1 2023 increased by 6% compared to the previous quarter. It’s 3 percentage points lower than the market’s average.
33% of all sessions in Q1 2023 were on Android; 67% - on iOS.
The overall length of sessions in games is growing in Japan since 2021. Now it’s about 26.59 minutes.
Mobile games audience
There are about 70M mobile gamers in Japan now. It’s one of the largest markets in the world.
65% of smartphone users in Japan play games daily. 92% are playing at least once a week.
Generation Z is 233% more likely to choose Party Royale; younger millennials tend to choose MOBA (52% more likely). Older millennials are more likely to choose puzzles. Generation X and baby boomers are spending 42% more time in card games than other generations.