Analytics: Japan is the second-largest market in Asia in terms of annual IAP revenue from mobile games

Sensor Tower released a report dedicated to the Japanese mobile gaming market. Here are the findings.

Pokémon TCG Pocket

From August 2024 to July 2025, Japanese gamers spent $11 billion on IAP in mobile games from the App Store and Google Play. This is a 2.2% decrease compared to the previous year.
Japanese gamers are among the most generous in Asia. Only Chinese players spent more during this period — $11.5 billion*. In comparison, South Korean gamers, ranking third, spent just $5 billion on mobile games over the year.
Mobile game downloads in Japan from August 2024 to July 2025 amounted to 628 million, making it the ninth highest in Asia. This represents a 2.5% decrease from the previous year. India remained the leader in downloads in the region with 8.23 billion.

As of January-July 2025, Pokémon TCG Pocket became both the highest-grossing and most downloaded mobile game in Japan. Analysts did not disclose specific figures for the game.
The top-grossing top 10 games in Japan primarily consist of market staples like Monster Strike and Fate/Grand Order. The only new entry in the list is Bandai Namco's SD Gundam G Generation ETERNAL, released in April 2025.

Japanese players mainly prefer mobile games from local publishers. From April to June 2025, Japanese games accounted for 52% of revenue and 31% of downloads. Chinese games ranked second with 25% revenue and 12% downloads.

From January to June 2025, nearly $600 million was spent in Japan on digital advertising for mobile, console, and PC games. Of this, 63% was allocated to mobile games.
Japanese publishers mostly invested in advertising mobile action and strategy games ($155.7 million), mobile puzzle and lifestyle games ($125.1 million), as well as console and PC shooters ($14 million).

*In China, analysts only considered spending on the App Store.