Weekly Reports Recap: November 8 - November 12
Insights on the CPIs in post-IDFA; VR market growth by 2030, and more are inside.
This week:
App Annie: Garena Free Fire became the most popular Battle Royale game of the first half of 2021
Nintendo Switch will receive the record amount of games this year
GlobalData: The VR market will reach $51B valuation in 2030
Sensor Tower: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp reached $250M since the release
Dataspelsbranschen: Swedish Gaming Companies earned $3.8B in 2020
Moloco: Post-IDFA Mobile Game Advertising Costs
App Annie: Indian Mobile Market Report
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games of October
Newzoo: Only 53% of Indian players have an Android device with 4GB RAM
MY.GAMES: Russian Gaming Market will grow in 2021 only by 1% - in roubles
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App Annie: Garena Free Fire became the most popular Battle Royale game of the first half of 2021
From January to July 2021 the game was downloaded 104.5M times. Garena Free Fire lost only to Join Clash from FreePlay.
Competitors performed much worse. PUBG Mobile had 71.6M installs during the same period; Call of Duty: Mobile - only 38.3M.
However, the number of active users in PUBG Mobile is still higher. But engagement is better in Garena Free Fire - its users playing 35% more sessions.
Comparing downloads from the launch moment, Garena Free Fire accumulated more than a billion downloads; PUBG Mobile - 974M, and Call of Duty: Mobile - 409M. Worth to mention, that latter was released 2 years later than competitors.
Nintendo Switch will receive the record amount of games this year
In the first ten months of 2021, Nintendo Switch got 1672 new projects. It’s only 7 games less than during the whole of 2020.
In September 2021 202 games were released on Switch - in 2020 there were only 147.
GlobalData: The VR market will reach $51B valuation in 2030
The analytic company highlighted, that in 2020 the valuation of the VR market was only $5B.
In 2030, about 75% of the valuation will come from the Enterprise segment. GlobalData analytics are sure, that the VR technology will find customers in professional domains.
Analytics are sure, that 5G integration, Cloud Services, and Motion Tracking enhancements, will positively affect the VR technology.
Sensor Tower: Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp reached $250M since the release
The game was launched in 2017, and the best year happened in 2020, thanks to coronavirus. Last year the game earned $77.5M - it’s 23.6% higher than in 2019.
In May 2020 Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp had the best month by revenue - $8.4M.
As for the current moment, in 2021 the game has earned $51.5M.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is the second Nintendo game by revenue. It’s losing only to Fire Emblem Heroes ($929.6M).
Japan is the primary market for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp ($172M of revenue, 67.3% of the whole volume). The US is next (21% of all revenue), South Korea is third (1.8%).
App Store is responsible for 61% of revenue, Google Play covers the remaining 39%.
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp was downloaded 61.8M times. 20.4M (33%) came from the US; 7.8% from Japan, and 6.3% from France.
Dataspelsbranschen: Swedish Gaming Companies earned $3.8B in 2020
It’s 43% higher than in 2019. $3.8B of revenue was split between 667 gaming companies working in the country.
The gaming industry income resulted in $834M - it’s 46% higher than in 2019.
81 new gaming companies were settled in Sweden in 2020. And for the past 10 years, the industry grew from $150.5M of revenue to $3.8B.
6,596 employees are working in the Swedish gaming industry. 78.6% of this amount are male.
Moloco: Post-IDFA Mobile Game Advertising Costs
Casual Games
The average CPI in casual games on iOS fell down by 38% since the iOS 14.6 release. On Android, it increased by 16%.
Important to mention, that from the release of iOS 14.5 to iOS 14.6, CPI in casual games on iOS increased by 20%, and by 97% on Android.
Dynamics (Casual Games):
iOS: CPI increased by 20% after the iOS 14.5 release. Felt down by 38% after the iOS 14.6 release.
Android: CPI increased by 97% after the iOS 14.5 release. Increased additionally by 16% after the iOS 14.6 release.
Core Games
CPI in core games on iOS increased by 78% since the iOS 14.6 release. On Android, there is also a growth - by 36%.
From the release of iOS 14.5 upon to iOS 14.6 release, there was an increase in CPI too. On iOS - by 10%, on Android - by 67%.
Dynamics (Core Games):
iOS: CPI increased by 10% after the iOS 14.5 release. Additionally increased by 78% after the iOS 14.6 release.
Android: CPI increased by 67% after the iOS 14.5 release. Additionally increased by 36% after the iOS 14.6 release.
The full version of the report is available here.
App Annie: Indian Mobile Market Report
India became the leader in H1 2021 by mobile games downloads. Users have downloaded games 4.8B times. Around 1/5 of world game downloads came from India.
The most popular game by downloads and MAU in H1 2021 was Ludo King. From the revenue perspective - Garena Free Fire.
In India, the Battle Royale genre is pretty popular (like in other regions).
However, there are no financial results of the market. App Annie is telling that the market is “booming”, but the downloads/revenue ratio, probably, doesn’t look good.
The full version of the report might be found here (with more verticals).
Sensor Tower: Top Grossing Mobile Games of October
Honor of Kings (as usual) was first, earned $329M last month. The increase YoY is 46.2%. 96.7 of overall revenue comes from China, and this is without alternative stores.
PUBG Mobile is second with $197M of revenue. 51% of revenue came from China, 11.5% - from the US.
League of Legends: Wild Rift managed to top-10 the first time, due to its launch in China, which was responsible for 93% of all revenue. The game earned $108M last month.
Good month for Candy Crush Saga, which YoY revenue growth was about 50%.
In October the mobile gaming market earned $7.5B - it’s 10.5% more than a year before.
The first place by revenue belongs to the US ($2.1B), Japan is second (about 20% of overall revenue), China is third (18.7%). But with the last case, Sensor Tower is not counting alternative stores, which might put China in the leading position.
Newzoo: Only 53% of Indian players have an Android device with 4GB RAM
Newzoo analytics tried to find out what RAM size must have the game to reach the max audience in India.
It happens, that 1GB RAM has 98% of Android users - it’s enough to run Garena Free Fire.
92% has smartphones with 2GB RAM - it will be enough to launch Garena Free Fire MAX.
Devices to launch ARK: Survival Evolved, which requires 3GB RAM, will find only 73% of India's population.
Finally, only 53% of gamers in India have access to NBA 2K Mobile, which requires 4GB RAM.
MY.GAMES: Russian Gaming Market will grow in 2021 only by 1% - in roubles
Russians will spend on games 165.6B of roubles ($2.25B) in 2021 - it’s 1% higher than in 2020 (163.4B roubles).
In dollars, the market will even fall down from $2.26B of revenue to $2.25B of revenue due to the course correction.
The reason for such numbers covers in previous coronavirus year when the market grew by 35%. The global tendency (due to Newzoo) is that in 2021 the gaming market will show a 1.1% decline.
It’s expected, that in 2022 the Russian market growth will get back to double-digit numbers.
The PC market in Russia in 2021 will earn 78.1B of roubles - about $1,09B (-4.6%).
The mobile market in Russia in 2021 will earn 73.8B of roubles - about $1,03B (+10%)
The console market in Russia in 2021 will earn 13.6B of roubles - about $190M (-5%).F2P is responsible for about 85% of all revenues.