Weekly Reports Recap: August 16 - August 20
14 reports - from App Annie, Sensor Tower, NPD Group and others.
This week:
App Annie: 2021 Mobile Gaming Tear Down - report
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games Worldwide in July 2021
The NPD Group: US users have spent $4.6B on games in July 2021
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games by Downloads in July 2021
Newzoo: How different generations interact with games
Stream Elements & Rainmaker.gg: Twitch views in July were up by 23%
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games Downloads and Revenue in July 2021
GSD: PlayStation, Xbox, Mario, and FIFA are the main brands at the EMEAA Market in H1 2021
Sensor Tower: Dragon Ball Z: Dokkah Battle passed the $3 billion milestone
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games in South Korea by Revenue and Downloads in Q2 2021
Newzoo: How Gamers consume food and drinks while playing
Sensor Tower: Mobile Market Forecast 2021-2025
Sensor Tower: US users are using 46 apps per month on average
Steam: Participation in Demo Festivals might increase wishlists by 421%
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App Annie: 2021 Mobile Gaming Tear Down - report
The Mobile Gaming market in 2021 will reach $120 billion. It’s 3 times more than the console market, according to App Annie specialists.
During the H1 2021 users were paying $1.7B per week in games. It’s 40% more than the pre-pandemic.
810 games have been earning >$1M per month in H1 2021. 7 of them managed to earn >$100M per month. In 2019, there were 650 mobile games with >$1M in revenue and only 2 reached >$100M revenue plank.
Companies with HQ in China are earning more than any other company in the world. For example, they were responsible for 22% of all revenue in the US market in H1 2021.
Hypercasual games had the most downloads in H1 2021 (6.8B - 2 times more, than in 2019). Shooters have the best time spending; the RPG genre has the highest revenue.
Forecast:
The hypercasual genre will continue to grow in most regions.
Innovative genres will take away the audience from classic genres.
Shooters & action games with online & social features will continue to engage the audience well.
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games Worldwide in July 2021
PUBG Mobile achieved first place with $299M of revenue. It’s 26.7% more than a year before. 68.4% of all revenue came from China, 6.7% - from the US, and 6% - from Turkey.
Honor of Kings is in second place with $231.2M of revenue. The project showed only a 2% YoY increase. 94.7% of all money came from China.
Generally, users have spent $7.6B in App Store and Google Play on games in July 2021. It’s 7.2% more than a year before. The US is responsible for $2.2B of this sum (29%). Japan is next with a 19.8% share and China is third (17.4%). But, Sensor Tower is not tracking alternative stores in China, which makes the data not full.
Pokemon GO showed fifth better month in history with $150.4M of revenue.
The NPD Group: US users have spent $4.6B on games in July 2021
It’s 10% more than a year before. It’s also the best month since July 2008 in revenue.
PlayStation 5 became the most successful console of the month in terms of dollar figures, while Nintendo Switch sold most consoles.
Gaming hardware spending increased 50% YoY. Most likely, it’s connected with the next-gen hardware release.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD became the most successful project of July 2021 in the US.
Spending on accessories increased by 11% compared to last year and reached $189 million.
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games by Downloads in July 2021
PUBG Mobile is the July 2021 king. Indian users generated most downloads after the return of the game to stores. China is second.
Count Masters from Tap2Play is in second place with 24.4M installs. The US is responsible for 10.6% of all traffic, India is accounting for approximately 7%.
Overall in July games were downloaded 4.7B times via App Store and Google Play. It’s 2.3% lower than a year before.
India is the first country by downloads the previous month with 815M installs (17.2% of all amount). The US is second (9.3%), Brazil is third (8.3%).
Newzoo: How different generations interact with games
Millennials and Gen Z people spend on games more time than on any other activity.
People up to 40 years spend, on average, 7 hours per week on games. The elder generation’s number is about 3 hours per week.
Young players (Gen Z & Millenials) are often playing games and watching videos about them. Gen X & Baby Boomers are using videos more applicable - they’re watching how to pass hard episodes and reviews.
The full version of the report
Stream Elements & Rainmaker.gg: Twitch views in July were up by 23%
Users watched 1.75B hours of video in total in July on Twitch. It’s 23% more than a year before.
Facebook Gaming also set a new record with 522M hours viewed.
The most popular genre is a talking show. GTA V is next with 139M hours watched - but the game showed a 17% decrease in views YoY.
AppMagic: Top Mobile Games Downloads and Revenue in July 2021
Downloads
My Talking Angela achieved 44.6M of downloads and first place. Only 3.9M of installs were on App Store.
Battlegrounds Mobile India (Indian version of the PUBG) reached 5 place by downloads in Google Play with 21.2M installs.
Revenue
PUBG Mobile earned $141.2M in July. It’s the best result.
ODIN: Valhalla Rising from South Korean Kakao Games became the most profitable game on Google Play - its revenue was $80.2M last month.
Fantasy New Jade Dynasty from Perfect World Entertainment had a nice month too. The game boosted from 83 place of iOS revenue in June to 9 place in July with $34.9M of revenue.
GSD: PlayStation, Xbox, Mario, and FIFA are the main brands at the EMEAA Market in H1 2021
In the region, which includes Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and parts of Asia, was sold 2.7M of game consoles (+4% YoY); 8.2M of gaming accessories (-5% YoY), and 82M games (-22% YoY) in H1 2021.
Nintendo Switch sales dropped by 26% compared to the first half of 2020.
DualSense was the most successful region accessory, DualShock is just after. The most popular gaming headset was Pulse 3D Wireless Headset.
Gaming sales decreased by 22% compared to H1 2020 but grew by 5% compared to H1 2019.
In H1 2021 67% of all game purchases were made digitally. The year before there were 62% of purchases in such format.
FIFA 21 is the most popular game in the region in H1 2021. In terms of physical-only sales Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury won first place; while the digital-only sales king was GTA V.
PS5 top-seller in H1 2021 was Spider-Man: Miles Morales; on Nintendo Switch - Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury; on Xbox Series S|X - Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
As for the new titles released, in H1 2021 were sold only 9M of copies. It’s less than in both 2020 (12.8M) and 2019 (17.2M).
Sensor Tower: Dragon Ball Z: Dokkah Battle passed the $3 billion milestone
It took the game 6.5 years to reach it. Getting the last billion was a matter of 20 months, starting 2019.
In H1 2021 the game earned $260.4M. In genre it conceded Monster Strike (by Mixi - $414M) and Puzzles & Dragons (by GungHo - $384M).
In July 2021 the Dragon Ball Z: Dokkah Battle showed the third-best result in history with $80.5M of revenue. It also showed the same month best downloads since August 2017 - 1.6M.
Japan is the first region for the Dragon Ball Z: Dokkah Battle, it was responsible for 60% of all the revenue ($1.8B). The US is in second place, France is third.
App Store is accounting for 51.6% of all revenue, Google Play share is 48.4%.
Currently, the Dragon Ball Z: Dokkah Battle installs is at the 67.4M plank. Japan is first (with 11.5M users), the US is second, Brazil is third. Google Play is responsible for 76% of all downloads.
Sensor Tower: Top Mobile Games in South Korea by Revenue and Downloads in Q2 2021
Revenue:
Lineage M earned more than any other game in Q2 2021 - $156M. It’s 7.4% growth compared to Q1 2021.
Lineage 2M is second with $99M revenue.
Released in February 2021 Three Kingdoms Tactics by Lingxi Games showed $26M of revenue in Q2 2021 - it’s 184% higher than in Q1 2021.
Generally, users have spent $1.37B (+20% YoY) on games in Q2 2021 in South Korea. It’s 42% more than in Q2 2019.
Downloads:
Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds became the most popular game of the second quarter with 1.8M of installs.
The second place belongs to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp from Nintendo with 1.1M of downloads (+330% growth from Q1 2021).
Newzoo: How Gamers consume food and drinks while playing
81% of all gamers are regularly eating while playing.
Among those who are watching gaming videos or streams this percentage is even higher - 92%.
64% of players are eating salty snacks while playing regularly. 35% are drinking soft drinks. About 24% from age of 21 like to drink beer (it’s interesting that in Latin America this percentage is higher - 32%).
Users, in general, tend to consume more food and drinks when watching games, not playing them.
Sensor Tower: Mobile Market Forecast 2021-2025
Overall user spending on mobile apps will increase from $142B this year to $270B in 2025.
App Store gaming revenue will increase from $56B in 2021 to $78B in 2025. The share of gaming apps in overall amount will decrease from 61% now to 42% in 2025.
As for Google Play, the gaming revenue will grow from $40B in 2021 to $60B in 2025. The share will decrease too, from 80% to 71% in 2025, but not as sufficiently as on App Store.
As for the downloads, both App Store and Google Play will show growth. From 10.5B to 13B in 2025 and from 47B to 66B respectively.
Sensor Tower: US users are using 46 apps per month on average
The share of games decreased a little bit from 2019 (36%) and 2020 (37%) resulted in 33% of gaming apps in 2021.
Sensor Tower analytics connecting this to the releases like Among Us and Genshin Impact. Players have found their favorite games and spending the majority of their time there.
Steam: Participation in Demo Festivals might increase wishlists by 421%
About half of projects found out that their wishlists even surpassed the aforementioned number. 45% of projects failed to beat the 421% plank. And 5% games wishlists fell down after participation.
Demo Festivals has a tale, which increases wishlists conversion up to 15%.
More wishlists - more sales. Demo Festivals participants observed an increase of 292% in sales.