Sensor Tower named the most successful publishers in mobile genres

This year, major mobile publishers have been particularly active in the M&A market. Analysts from Sensor Tower studied the leaders in major genres over the past nine months in the United States and tracked how their positions were affected by deals to buy other studios.

Note: only the amounts that companies earned in the USA are indicated everywhere. Global sales were not taken into account.

Puzzles

• 75% of the revenue in this category was distributed among three companies: King (30%), Playrix (27%) and Zynga (18%);
• in the first nine months of 2020, King, which was bought by Activision in 2016, earned about $846 million (an increase of 6% year-on-year);
• Playrix’s revenues almost doubled year-on-year to $742 million. Most of the revenue came from the company’s main hits, Gardenscapes and Homescapes. However, this year Playrix also bought two studios at once — Armenian Plexonic and Croatian Cateia Games;
• In the first three quarters of 2020, Zynga earned $512 million. Thanks to several M&A deals, the company has significantly strengthened its position in the market – the publisher’s revenues would have been half as much if not for the purchase of Peak Games for $ 1.8 billion;
• The top five also included Jam City, which bought Disney Emoji Blitz developers, and Playtika, which has acquired Supertreat and Wooga studios over the past few years.

The most successful publishers in the genre of puzzles in the USA (1-3 quarter 2020)

Strategies

• Supercell remained the leader in the segment, earning $378 million in nine months;
• on the second line is the publisher FunPlus, whose revenues amounted to $ 339 million and increased by 58.7%. All thanks to the success of titles like King of Avalon and Guns of Glory;
• AppLovin showed the greatest growth. Last year, the company basically had no share in the strategy segment, but thanks to the purchase of the Machine Zone studio, it earned $108 million and was immediately on the eighth line;
• Scopley took the sixth place thanks to the purchase of Star Trek Fleet Command developers. Over the past nine months, the game has become one of the four highest-grossing strategies in the United States.

The most successful publishers in the strategy genre in the USA (1-3 quarter 2020)

RPG

• Netmarble took the first place, earning $254 million in nine months. This was influenced by the success of Marvel Contest of Champions from Kabam Studio, which the South Korean publisher acquired in 2017;
• in second place with a result of $ 230 million was Bandai Namco, which strengthened its position thanks to the games of the Dragon Ball series;
• Scopley managed to gain a foothold not only in the strategy category, but also in RPG. This happened thanks to the purchase of FoxNet Games, whose Marvel Strike Force game earned $165 million over the past nine months.

The most successful RPG publishers in the USA (1-3 quarter 2020)

Hyper – casual games

• the leader of the segment was Voodoo, a share in which was acquired by Tencent. In the first three quarters of 2020, the publisher’s projects were downloaded 210 million times in the USA;
• AppLovin has strengthened its position in the hyper—casual games market thanks to the success of the Lion Studios internal studio – in nine months their games have been downloaded 125 million times;
• Sensor Tower notes that by the end of the year, Zynga will take the ninth place in terms of the number of downloads in this segment. All thanks to the purchase of the hyper-casual publisher Rollic Games.

The most successful publishers in the genre of hyper-casual games in the USA (1-3 quarter 2020)

Conclusions

M&A deals have become an integral part of the mobile gaming industry. According to analysts from Sensor Tower, buying new studios is a natural way of development for large companies.

Thanks to successful deals, publishers like Scopely, Zynga and AppLovin were able to strengthen their positions in several genres at once and become one of the market leaders in general.

Also on the topic:

• Sensor Tower: in the starting month, Genshin Impact earned $245 million only on mobile devices
• Sensor Tower: in the third quarter of 2020, Americans spent $5.8 billion on mobile games
• Sensor Tower: Roblox revenue in mobile exceeded $2 billion