Sensor Tower: average size of top mobile games in US has increased 76% since 2016

Mobile developers and publishers continue to release heavier games, as the average file size on the US App Store has grown 76% in the last five years.

The statistics have been shared by Sensor Tower. “We looked at the top 100 revenue generating mobile games on the US App Store each year since 2016, and determined each title’s file size based on storage requirements at the end of the year,” says Craig Chapple, Mobile Insights Strategist at Sensor Tower.

It’s worth noting that the file size doesn’t include additional content.

While the average file size for a mobile game in 2016 was 264 Mb, it increased to nearly 465 Mb in 2020. The median size increased even more, growing 102.6% over the last five years — from 147 Mb to almost 299 Mb.

Key takeaways from the report

• Roblox, which was the top-grossing game on the US App Store in 2020, increased 20% year-over-year to 222 Mb.
• File size of Candy Crush Saga decreased by 17.2% year-over-year and now amounts to 225 Mb.
• CSR Racing 2 was the game with the largest file size in the top 100. Zynga’s title requires 3.8 Gb of storage space.
• DoubleDown saw the largest growth in file size, with a 107% increase year-over-year.
• Fortnite was the second largest growing game in file size, increasing to 315 Mb before being removed from the App Store.

Games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Genshin Impact, which require more than 1 Gb of storage, serve as an example of developers using hardware improvements to bring bigger and more complex titles to mobile platforms.