Sensor Tower: South Korean Market in H2'24
Number of Korean and non-Korean publishers in H2'24 by Revenue equaled.
Overall Market Condition
The second half of 2024 results in dollars were slightly worse than in the second half of 2023, but not significantly. Considering the exchange rate (the Korean won began to weaken against the dollar in September), revenue in the national currency may be in the positive zone.
Android accounted for 71.8% of all revenue; iOS - 28.2%. Compared to the previous year, Android's share decreased by 9%, while iOS increased by 12%.
In the second half of 2024, Koreans downloaded 280 million games - slightly less than in the same period of 2023. The share of Android downloads fell by 6.9%, while the share of iOS installations increased by 12%. The trend of strengthening iOS positions continues throughout 2024.
Most Successful Games in the H2’24
Lineage M returned to first place in revenue (in August 2024, the game earned a record $45 million, thanks to events for the 7th anniversary), and Last War: Survival is in second place.
Road Nine from Smilegate is the only newcomer in the revenue chart for the second half of the year in the South Korean market. The game took 5th place.
There is significantly more movement in the download charts. Lucky Defense! by 111 percent, is in first place. GoStop 21 and Capybara Go! are also among the leaders in downloads. Among the new projects are Pokemon TCG Pocket, Block Game by Moca; Zombie.io - Potato Shooting by Joy Net Games, and Devil Athena: Dark Olympus by EFUN.
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Leaders in Revenue and Download Growth
Road Nine is the fastest-growing revenue project in the second half of 2024.
The fastest dynamics in new downloads are for Capybara GO!; Pokemon TCG Pocket and Pikmin Bloom. Interestingly, the latter is the only non-new game that made it into the chart (it was released in October 2021).
Publisher Revenue Rankings
NCSOFT is the most successful publisher by revenue in the second half of 2024. Success comes from Lineage 2M; Lineage W and Lineage M.
For the first time since the first half of 2020, foreign publishers made it into the top 5. This time, there are two - FirstFun (Last War: Survival) in 2nd place and Century Games (Whiteout Survival) in 4th place. Both companies are based in China.
Dream Games (Royal Match) made it into the top 10 for the first time, and Smilegate (Road Nine) returned after a 6-year break.
Looking at the top 10, the list includes 5 Korean companies; 4 Chinese and 1 from Turkey.