Sensor Tower: in the third quarter of 2020, mobile games generated $20.9 billion

Sensor Tower analysts studied the mobile gaming market and stated: in the third quarter of 2020, players spent $4.4 billion more than a year ago. We have highlighted the main thing from the company’s report.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the consumer behavior of gamers in the third quarter of 2020, Sensor Tower believes. In the new report, analysts also explain the strengthened growth in revenue and downloads in mobile by the forced isolation of gamers and the lack of entertainment.

Revenue data (in Google Play and App Store)

• mobile’s revenue increased by 26.7% compared to the same period in 2019 and reached $20.9 billion;
• The App Store remains the most profitable mobile marketplace — in July-September, the store earned $12.4 billion. This is $3.9 billion more than Google Play ($8.5 billion). Note that last year the App Store was ahead of its competitor by $ 3.5 billion;
• Nevertheless, Google Play is ahead in terms of growth rates. In the third quarter of 2020, the games of this store collected 30.8% more than in 2019 ($ 6.5 billion). While App Store revenues increased by 24%;

• The Chinese giant Tencent has once again become the market leader. Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile games took first and second place in the overall top of the highest-grossing games. At the same time, the consumer spending of Honor of Kings fans increased by 65% compared to last year, and the spending of PUBG Mobile players increased by 28%;
• Pokémon GO is in third place. Analysts did not disclose the title’s revenue, but indicated its revenue growth in annual terms — 33%;
• The fourth and fifth places went to Coin Master and Roblox. Despite the lag in revenue, these titles have overtaken most of the previous ones in terms of growth rates. Coin Master collected 50% more than in the third quarter of 2019, and Roblox — by 112%;
• in total, five top games brought the industry $2.4 billion. For comparison, in the same period last year, the top five titles earned $ 1.9 billion.

Download data (in Google Play and App Store)

• the number of mobile game downloads amounted to 14.2 billion (+27.9%);

• The majority of downloads came from Google Play (11.9 billion), which grew by 36.8% compared to 2019. But the iOS user began to download games less often – installations in the App Store fell by 4.2%. Sensor Tower explains this by a decrease in interest among Chinese players, since outside of China the number of downloads in the iOS store has increased slightly;
• Among Us is an unconditional hit in downloads, which exceeded last year’s figures by 13 times;
• Scribble Rider and My Talking Tom Friends took the second and third place of the top in terms of the number of downloads. Completing the rating are Subway Surfers with a 29% increase in installations and Garena Free Fire, whose downloads in July-September 2020 fell by 5%.

Also on the topic:

• Sensor Tower: the number of installations of the mobile version Among Us exceeded 120 millionSensor Tower: Americans have spent $2 billion on mobile RPGs over the past eight months
• Sensor Tower: Fortnite seriously lagged behind in revenue from other mobile battle royales in the world
• Is there any news?