data.ai: Mobile Gaming Market in 2024
The mobile gaming is far from being in the optimal position.
data.ai presents revenue in Gross.
Revenue
In total, games earned $107.3 billion - 2% less than in 2022. Here, data.ai takes into account third-party Android stores in China.
The United States ($9.2 billion), South Korea ($5 billion), and Japan ($4.4 billion) are the largest countries in terms of revenue on Android. On iOS, the leadership belongs to the United States ($14.8 billion), China ($11.2 billion), and Japan ($8.4 billion).
The North American market saw a decrease in revenue by approximately 1% in 2023. The share of the APAC region decreased from 51% in 2022 to 49% in 2023. South Korea saw a revenue increase of 21% in 2023.
In 2023, there were 924 projects with annual revenue exceeding $10 million. 150 games surpassed the $100 million mark. Finally, 7 projects earned over $1 billion in 2023. 2021 remains the best year in terms of revenue in the market.
Royal Match and Gardenscapes earned over $1 billion annually for the first time.
Mobile companies headquartered in China earned $27.3 billion in 2023. This constitutes a quarter of the entire gaming industry volume.
Player Behavior
User spending on games in Tier 1 countries correlates with real income levels. People are willing to reduce game spending when their income decreases.
Japan leads in monthly spending on iOS games - $10.76. South Korea leads in Google Play figures - people spend $11.38 on games per month. However, data.ai notes that monthly spending across almost all regions has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
In 2024, many people are considering optimizing their budgets.
Younger generations prefer sandboxes, racing, and RPGs. Older players prefer Match 3, solitaire, and slots.
Female are more likely to play Match 3 and word games, while men are more inclined towards Team Battle RPGs, MOBAs, and sports games.
Downloads
The number of game downloads decreased by 2% compared to the previous year, totaling 88 billion. This is the first decline since 2020.
India (9.4 billion), Brazil (4.3 billion), and Indonesia (3.3 billion) lead in downloads on Google Play. On iOS, the leaders are the United States (2.1 billion), China (1.2 billion), and Japan (355 million). However, iOS downloads in the United States have been declining for the third consecutive year.
Advertising Market
Spending on mobile advertising in 2023 amounted to $362 billion. data.ai predicts that in 2024, spending will increase to $402 billion. This indicates that the influence of advertising revenue on mobile devices is growing.
Gaming Market Situation
data.ai notes that the number of new games in the top 1000 by downloads has been decreasing since 2020. In some Asian markets (such as the United States and South Korea), there was a slight increase in 2023. However, in most cases, new projects receive fewer downloads.
Revenue from old projects continues to dominate a large part of the gaming market, and user spending on new projects has not yet exceeded expenses on old ones in any of the data.ai markets listed, except for South Korea and Singapore.
However, positive changes are visible in several markets - Canada, China, Vietnam, and the United Kingdom. The ratio of revenue from new games to old ones has begun to change in favor of the former.
Trends by genre from data.ai have been already covered here.
Great read, thanks!