Evgeniy Obedkov

In the first quarter, revenue from in-game purchases in South Korea reached a record $1.5 billion

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South Korea’s mobile market continues to grow. According to the local analytical company IGAWorks, in the first quarter of 2021, users spent a record $1.5 billion in games. The top projects in terms of revenue include various MMOs and, of course, Lineage M, which remains the highest—grossing mobile title in the country.Lineage 2M

The IGAWorks report is based on data collected from 40 million mobile devices for the period from January 1 to April 6, 2021.

Total revenue from in—game purchases in the first quarter amounted to 1.66 trillion won (about $1.5 billion) – an increase of 12.1% year-on-year. 78.6% of revenue came from Google Play, the second line was taken by the local ONE Store (14.2%), but the App Store accounted for only 7.2%.

Data on individual gamesThe most popular game of the first quarter was Cookie Run: Kingdom with a MAU of 3.06 million users.

  • This is an autobattler with elements of an urban planning simulator, released by Devsisters studio in January. In March, the project’s DAU reached 1.2 million, and women made up 57.4% of the audience.The second place was taken by Brawl Stars (MAU — 2.03 million), and the third place was occupied by the racing game KartRider Rush+ (MAU — 1.98 million).
  • Also in the top 5 for this indicator were Roblox (MAU – 1.6 million) and PUBG Mobile (MAU — 1.54 million).Lineage M remained the highest-grossing mobile game in South Korea.
  • The NCsoft project earned 70.3 billion won (about $63 million) in the quarter, and the revenue of the sequel, Lineage 2M, amounted to 55.5 billion won (about $49.8 million).Cookie Run: Kingdom is in third place in terms of revenue — 20.02 billion won (about $17.9 million).
  • The fourth place was taken by the MMO Sword of Miracle (奇迹之 剑) from the Chinese studio 4399 – 19.9 billion won (about $ 17.8 million). And closes the top 5 MMORPG Gran Saga from the South Korean studio NPIXEL — 16.2 billion won (about $ 14.5 million).The IGAWorks report also notes the success of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which was released in South Korea only at the end of March.
  • The game immediately broke into the leaders in downloads, and its DAU was 420 thousand people.

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