Weekly Reports Recap: November 22 - November 26
11 insightful reports inside.
This week:
Google & Newzoo: Gaming industry in 2021 and beyond
Global Sales Data: PlayStation 5 owners prefer buying boxed games
Newzoo: 20% of the Xbox audience played Call of Duty: Warzone & Fortnite last month
Niko Partners: Chinese gaming market will earn less in 2021 than expected
App Annie: Players downloaded games 14.3B times in Q3 2021
DFC Intelligence: Users will spend $135B on gaming hardware by 2026
App Annie: Mobile Gaming Market of Australia & New Zealand in 2021
Newzoo & Carry1st: The number of Sub-Saharian Africa users increased by 2.4x times in 6 years
Sensor Tower: PUBG Mobile daily revenue in 2021 is $8.1M
App Annie: EMEA-based Match-3 developers earned almost a billion $ in Q3 2021
Sensor Tower: PUBG: New State reached $2.6M of revenue first week
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Google & Newzoo: Gaming industry in 2021 and beyond
In 2021 the gaming first time in history will show a decline from the record $177.8B in 2020 to $175.8B this year. However, by 2024 it’s expected to grow to $218.7B.
By the end of 2021, there will be 3B players in the world. Middle East & Africa are showing the highest growth rates with +10,1% YoY.
Trends:
Gaming subscriptions are making easier access to the content. At least, on PC and consoles.
Games are used as a socialization tool.
Increasing gaming content consumption (streams, videos, tournaments).
Cross-platform playing.
Cloud Gaming.
Global Sales Data: PlayStation 5 owners prefer buying boxed games
At the moment, for each 3 bought boxed copies 2 digital copies are sold.
Analytics are pointing out two factors. Firstly, for $70 users do want to own something physical. Secondly, boxed copies might be exchanged, or sold to other users.
Newzoo: 20% of the Xbox audience played Call of Duty: Warzone & Fortnite last month
Call of Duty: Warzone was played by 21.3% of the whole Xbox audience. Fortnite has a little bit less - 20.9%. But if we’re talking about retention, the latter is best every day (from D1 to D28).
18% of Xbox users have played Minecraft last month; Back 4 Blood has 17.2% of the audience (thanks to Xbox Game Pass), GTA V has 16.5%.
Xbox Game Pass really helps to boost the audience that is playing your game. After adding Bethesda games to the catalog, numbers changed in the following way:
Skyrim's audience increased from 2.4% in February to 4.1% in March.
Fallout 4 audience increased from 0.9% in February to 3% in March.
DOOM Eternal audience increased from 1.4% in February to 3% in March.
Prey's audience increased from 0.1% in February to 1.8% in March.
It’s worth to mention, that new users have shown great retention and long gaming sessions.
Outer Wilds developers managed to invite a huge audience to the game thanks to Xbox Game Pass. They even managed to return it with the release of the DLC, reaching almost the same numbers they had when the game was launched in the Xbox Game Pass.
Niko Partners: Chinese gaming market will earn less in 2021 than expected
Its forecasted revenue in 2021 will slightly fall down from $47.52B to $46.98B.
There are several reasons for it: government regulations, slow opening of internet cafes (COVID-19 affect), lack of new online game licenses.
$32.3B of the overall sum will come from mobile games. Growth to the previous year will be 10.5%, but analytics expected 11,9%.
PC gaming market will generate $13.6B, which is 2.1% less than in 2020. It was expected, that decline will be just 1.2%.
The console market will bring $2.19B. The forecast here didn’t change.
The number of Chinese gamers is expected to decrease too. Currently, there are more than 700M players - part of young gamers will drop games because of time limitations for them.
Daniel Ahmad, Niko Partners analytics, is expecting that the Chinese government will affect the market. It will cause more Chinese companies to look at the Western markets, which are not suffering from regulations.
App Annie: Players downloaded games 14.3B times in Q3 2021
3.6B of downloads from the overall amount came from the hypercasual games.
DFC Intelligence: Users will spend $135B on gaming hardware by 2026
Currently, the market of gaming hardware is valuated at $82B. This sum consists of console, PC, accessories sales.
DFC Intelligence analytics thinks, that growth will be driven by PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S|X. In this order.
App Annie: Mobile Gaming Market of Australia & New Zealand in 2021
In Q2 2021 Australian users spent $888.7M in games. New Zealand users added $134.8M to the revenue.
In both countries, Android users retention is decreasing. In average, D1 Retention decreased from 30.5% in 2019 to 28.6% in 2021; D3 Retention - from 3% in 2019 to 2.5% in 2021.
The picture is a little bit different on iOS. D1 Retention there increased from 31.9% in 2019 to 32.8% in 2021. But D30 Retention is still decreasing - from 3.7% to 3.55%.
The percentage of fraud downloads in the gaming segment in both countries is lower than 0.75%.
Newzoo & Carry1st: The number of Sub-Saharian Africa users increased by 2.4x times in 6 years
South Africa is the largest Sub-Saharian Africa market by gaming revenue with $290M.
Nigeria is responsible for $185M; Ghana - for $42M; Kenya - for $38M; Ethiopia - for $35M.
In South Africa, about 40% of the overall population plays games. In Ghana (27%), Nigeria (23%), Kenya (22%), and Ethiopia (13%) this percentage is much lower.
From 2017 the number of gamers in Sub-Saharian Africa increased from 77M to 186M in 2021.
Sensor Tower: PUBG Mobile daily revenue in 2021 is $8.1M
PUBG Mobile surpassed the $7B mark after the record Q3 2021.
This year's game has earned $2.6B so far. It’s more than Genshin Impact has but less than Honor of Kings.
In the record Q3 2021, revenue reached $771M. No quarter this year it was lower than $700M, which means, that PUBG Mobile's daily revenue was about $8.1M.
The Chinese version of PUBG Mobile (Game For Peace) is responsible for $4B (57% of overall revenue, not counting third-party Android stores). The US is accountable for 11.8%, and Japan is third with 4.2%.
App Annie: EMEA-based Match-3 developers earned almost a billion $ in Q3 2021
Royal Match is first by revenue, Took Life: World - second, Homescapes is third.
There is only one shooter on the list - Mech Arena: Robot Showdown.
Sensor Tower: PUBG: New State reached $2.6M of revenue first week
The game was downloaded more than 23M times.
India is responsible for 30% (7M) of overall revenues, the US and South Korea are next.
The US, Japan, and Turkey are leading by revenue.