Sensor Tower has published its report for the first half of 2022. According to the report, revenues of mobile games fell 6.6% year over year.
2022 is a stabilization period for the mobile game industry. The industry, which grew rapidly in 2021, started to settle into its ordinary course in the first six months of 2022. User spending on mobile games in the first half of last year was $44.1 billion. In the first six months of this year, mobile game revenues declined slightly year on year to $41.2 billion.
About $25.6 billion of user spending for mobile games was made on iOS. Spending on the App Store in the same period of last year was $25.8 billion. This represents a 0.8% drop in year-over-year iOS spending.
On Google Play, the drop is slightly higher. Player spending on Google Play, which was $18.3 billion in the first half of last year, fell 14.8% year-over-year to $15.6 billion.
Top revenue-generating mobile games
In the first half of 2022, the most revenue-generating games were Honor of Kings and PUBG: Mobile. The revenues of both games exceeded $1 billion in the first half. Tencent’s games have long been at the top of revenue charts.
Third place is miHoYo’s Genshin Impact. The game, which has attracted significant interest since its release, generated $986.2 million in revenue in the first half of 2022. Genshin Impact’s total revenue to date has exceeded $3 billion.
Candy Crush, which ranked fourth on the list, reached consumer spending of $593.5 million. Roblox followed with $576.5 million.
The list of games that generate the most revenue has been hosting the same games since the beginning of 2022. Over the past six months, we’ve consistently seen top 5 ranked games at the top of revenue charts.
Top downloaded mobile games
Despite the slight decrease in revenue, downloads of mobile games have increased slightly. The downloads, which were 28 billion in the same period last year, rose to 28.1 billion in the first six months of this year. Here is an increase of about 100 million, or 0.4%.
There is a big difference in the number of downloads between Google Play and the App Store. 23.9 billion downloads come from Google Play and 4.2 billion from the App Store.
Subway Surfers was the most downloaded mobile game in the first half of 2022. The game was in 6th place on the list in the same period of last year. Subway Surfers has 148.7 million downloads. Also, recently Miniclip announced that it would acquire Subway Surfers developer Sybo.
Garena Free Fire, which reached 147.2 million downloads, ranked second on the list, and Ludo King took third place with 87.7 million downloads.
Mobile apps are also on the rise
In the first half of 2022, a slight increase was observed in the revenues of mobile applications. In the first half of 2022, mobile application revenues rose 1% to reach $65 billion. In the same period last year, this amount was determined as 64.4 billion dollars.
In terms of applications, TikTok, Youtube, and Google One came to the fore. Sensor Tower estimates that TikTok generated $1.7 billion, YouTube $693.6 million, and Google One $614 million.
In summary, the game industry’s growth continues, even if it slows down. Mobile apps continue to grow steadily. The number of mobile players worldwide is increasing, and the mobile industry maintains its authority.
