Sensor Tower summed up the results of the first half of the year in mobile gaming

The article notes the growth of revenues and the number of installations, as well as provides market analysis by country and the most successful projects.

Highlights from the report:

• mobile projects in the first half of the year brought developers and publishers $ 36.8 billion;India became the leader in the number of installations, showing an increase of almost a billion downloads;
• PUBG Mobile, Fortnite and Roblox were in the top of the most successful projects;
• American users spent $10 billion on games in the first half of the year.
• Revenue

Half – year

• total revenue for the first half of the year amounted to $36.8 billion;the most successful month was May — mobile projects generated $6.6 billion (21.5% more than last year’s figures);
• The USA came out on top with total revenue of $10 billion (the growth of funds spent by users in the second quarter was 24%).
• In second place are Japanese players who spent $8 billion on games. Next comes China with figures of $6.7 billion;the leaders in downloading games were India, the USA and Brazil — in all three countries there was an increase in new installations.
• The peak of downloads in the world occurred in April (during this month, users made 5.5 billion new installations);Mobile Game revenue (Q1 2016 — Q2 2020) excluding third-party revenue on Android in China and other countries

First quarter

• in the first three months of 2020, there was an explosive growth of installations, and the total number of new downloads reached 13.4 billion (38% more than last year);total revenue amounted to $17.5 billion (16% more than last year’s figures for this period).
• Second quarter
  

• mobile gaming market revenues increased by 10.3% compared to the first quarter. Sensor Tower associates this with the COVID-19 pandemic;total revenue for the second quarter was $19.3 billion, which is 27% more than last year.
• And the number of installations exceeded 15 billion (an increase of 45.2%).Unlike other leaders, Chinese market revenues fell by 8.6% (from $3.5 billion to $3.2 billion in the second quarter).
• Mobile Game downloads (Q1 2016 — Q2 2020) excluding third-party revenue on Android in China and other countries

Downloads

total game downloads for the first half of 2020 reached the level of 28 billion;

• most of the downloads occurred in the second quarter (15.1 billion);
• the main driver of the growth of downloads 
• India: the number of downloads of games in the country in the second quarter increased by almost a billion — 2.7 billion in the second quarter against 1.8 billion in the first (an increase of 50%);users in the US generated more than 1.4 billion installations in each of the first two quarters (despite the fact that the growth in the number of downloads has slowed down in the last three months);
• in China, on the contrary, the number of installations decreased by 35.8% — 743 million downloads in the first quarter against 477 million in the second.
• This is due to the fact that quarantine measures in the country began in January and ended in April.Top most successful games for the second quarter of 2020

In commercial terms, PUBG Mobile has become the absolute leader, which has earned $621 million over the past three months (despite an 8% decline compared to the first quarter).

• And the most successful month for PUBG Mobile was March with revenue of about $270 million;The rapid growth was shown by the multiplayer game Roblox, the mobile version of which brought in $ 302.8 million in the second quarter (an increase of 58.8% compared to the previous quarter).
• The peak of revenues came in May — during this month the project earned $ 108.6 million;Player spending in Fortnite increased by 110.7% compared to the first quarter and amounted to $146 million.
• This made the game from Epic Games one of the most successful projects in the App Store. The rise in popularity of battle royale is explained by the addition of a new Party Royale mode, as well as large-scale in-game events like the Travis Scott concert;Pokémon GO showed the best first half of the year in the history of the project.
• In the second quarter, the game earned $254 million (an increase of 32.7% compared to the previous quarter). In many ways, this was facilitated by the mitigation of quarantine measures in the world, as well as changes in the project itself, which made the possibility of playing at home more convenient.***

Analysts from Sensor Tower note the huge impact of the pandemic on the mobile games market and predict an increase in the number of installations until 2024. At the same time, the purchasing power of the players should remain approximately at the level of the early forecasts made before COVID-19. In particular, this is influenced by the deteriorating economic situation in the world.

Also on the topic:

• App Annie has published a report on the situation on the video game market for Q1 2020Sensor Tower: spending by European players on mobile games will reach $12.9 billion by 2022
• Sensor Tower acquired two mobile apps for an undisclosed amount
• Is there any news?