Analysts at Sensor Tower released a comprehensive report on the state of the global video game market from January to June 2026. A significant portion of the data pertains to mobile games from the App Store and Google Play—the focus of this publication.
Honor of Kings
Revenue
- According to Sensor Tower estimates, gamers worldwide spent a total of $40 billion on in-app purchases (IAP) in mobile games over six months, which is 2% less than the first half of 2025.
- The largest market in terms of IAP revenue remained the United States, with Americans spending $12.1 billion on mobile games. China took the second place with $6.46 billion in spending.
- Half-year spending by Russians on IAP in games from the App Store and Google Play amounted to $79.5 million.
- The most money in the first half of 2026 was spent on mid-core games—$20.6 billion, down 9%. Casual games followed with $16.5 billion, a decrease of 1.2%, and hyper-casual games saw a 19% increase, reaching $2.44 billion.
- Traditionally, the top three genres by IAP revenue were strategies ($9.27 billion), puzzles ($8.07 billion), and RPGs ($6.12 billion).
- Among specific games, the top spot for IAP revenue was claimed by Honor of Kings, with half-year earnings reaching $1.07 billion. Alongside it, Last War: Survival ($977 million) and Whiteout Survival ($918 million) made it into the top three.
Downloads
- The number of mobile downloads continued to decline gradually. By the end of the first six months of 2026, it totaled 24 billion, a drop of 11.9% year-over-year.
- The most active mobile game downloads were in India (3.78 billion downloads), the USA (1.74 billion downloads), Brazil (1.51 billion downloads), Indonesia (1.46 billion downloads), and Russia (996 million downloads).
- Only casual games maintained their download numbers at 7 billion, unchanged from the previous year. All other categories saw a decline, but not significantly.
- The top downloaded game of the half-year was Block Blast! with 175.4 million downloads. Following it were Garena Free Fire (153.6 million downloads) and Roblox (150.8 million downloads). Additionally, Arrows Puzzle Escape, which took fourth place with 100.4 million downloads, saw a sharp rise in popularity. According to analysts, arrow puzzles in general were in demand last half-year, but Arrows Puzzle Escape surpassed them all.