Sensor Tower: in the third quarter of 2020, Americans spent $5.8 billion on mobile games

By the end of the year, the mobile gaming market in the United States slowed down a little, analysts at Sensor Tower write in a new report. In the third quarter of 2020, mobile’s revenue amounted to $5.8 billion, which is 200 million less than in the second.

Sensor Tower analytical company shared the latest data on the US mobile market for the period from July to September 2020. We have highlighted the main thing from the report.

General

• The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the consumer behavior of players. Mobile’s revenue, although it became less than in the last quarter, still increased compared to previous years. Analysts point out that if the growth rate of the market would still be at the level of 2015-2019, today’s revenue did not reach even $ 5 billion.;

Genres

• Americans spent the most money on casino games ($1.2 billion), puzzles ($1.1 billion) and strategies ($875 million);
• at the same time, the fastest growing genres were simulators (59%), casinos (51%) and shooters (49%);

Subgenres

• in the category of subgenres, slots ($808 million) and 4X strategies ($613 million) brought the largest revenue.
• the largest growth in relation to the third quarter of 2019 was shown by social casinos (119%) and sandboxes (78%);
• Sensor Tower also noted that in some subgenres, often one game or one publisher brought in the most revenue. For example, three projects of the publisher Playrix generated 67% of the revenue of Puzzle & Decorate games. At the same time, one Pokémon GO collected 90% of earnings in the geolocation AR subgenre;

The 4X Strategy subgenre

• separately, the specialists of the analytical company examined the subgenre of 4X strategies. Unlike Puzzle & Decorate or geolocation AR, there is not one clearly stand-out game here;
• in a year and a half (since the beginning of the first quarter of 2019), competition in this subgenre has almost doubled. At the beginning of last year, the game needed to raise about $ 13 million to get into the Top 10. In July-September 2020, the game’s earnings should already be at least $ 25 million to take the tenth place in the list of the best;

• in the period from January 2019 to September 2020, not a single title managed to gain a foothold in the first place in the top. It was equally claimed by four games. At the moment, the leading game is State of Survival, developed by FunPlus;
• In the third quarter of this year, American players spent at least $39 million on each of the games included in the top 5.

Also on the topic:

• Sensor Tower summed up the results of the first half of the year in mobile gamingSensor Tower: in the third quarter of 2020, mobile games generated $20.9 billion
• Sensor Tower: Genshin Impact revenues in the first week amounted to $60 million
• Is there any news?