Sensor Tower: in 2024, IAP revenue from the mobile gaming market reached $80.9 billion, exceeding the forecast
The analytical company Sensor Tower has published a report on the state of the mobile app market in 2024. Below is a brief overview of the gaming segment.
MONOPOLY GO! — left, Free Fire — right
- Last year, global IAP revenue from the mobile games market reached $80.9 billion. Compared to 2023, it increased by 4%. The amount exceeded the forecast by Sensor Tower. In the summer, analysts wrote they expected the IAP revenue to be $78 billion.
- Downloads of mobile games continued to decline. By the end of 2024, they decreased by 6% to 49.6 billion.
- In 2024, four mobile games had annual IAP revenue exceed one billion dollars for the first time: Dungeon & Fighter Mobile, Whiteout Survival, Last War, and Brawl Stars.
- The RPG genre lost its title as the highest-grossing genre for the first time in a long period, although it ranked second in the annual rating. Its IAP revenue was $16.8 billion (-17.3%).
- First place in the revenue ranking for genres went to strategies. Their total revenue for 2024 was $17.5 billion (+16.2%). More than half of this amount came from the 4X strategy subgenre, which earned $8.1 billion.
- Among the top genres, action games showed the highest growth in IAP revenue. They earned $3.6 billion, which is 46% more than in 2023. This growth is possibly partially explained by the success of Dungeon & Fighter Mobile in China.
- In the ranking of the most downloaded genres by the end of 2024, simulators led the way with 9.8 billion downloads (+0.4%). Along with puzzle games, they accounted for 20% of all mobile game downloads last year.
- In 2024, people spent 4.2 trillion hours using mobile apps. In the gaming category, the most time was spent on battle royales (56.28 billion hours), MOBA (47 billion hours), and sandbox games like Roblox (36.2 billion hours).
- Azur Games was the top mobile publisher in terms of game downloads in 2024. Its most downloaded game was WormsZone.io. In the annual IAP revenue ranking, Tencent once again took the first place, with Honor of Kings continuing to generate significant revenue.
Top 10 Highest-Grossing Mobile Games Worldwide in 2024
1. MONOPOLY GO!;
2. Honor of Kings;
3. Royal Match;
4. Roblox;
5. Last War: Survival;
6. Candy Crush Saga;
7. Whiteout Survival;
8. Coin Master;
9. Dungeon & Fighter Mobile;
10. Game For Peace.
Top 10 Most Downloaded Mobile Games Worldwide in 2024
1. Free Fire;
2. Roblox;
3. Block Blast;
4. Subway Surfers;
5. Ludo King;
6. Pizza Ready;
7. Offline Games;
8. PUBG Mobile;
9. Royal Match;
10. My Talking Tom 2.