According to Data.ai’s latest report, video games industry keeps on strengthening. May 2023 saw game revenue hit USD 94 million worldwide, the highest the month has seen since 2020. Besides, during the first half of 2023, global mobile game consumer expenses were USD 40.9 billion, a great indicator.
About apps, game spending on iOS for the H1 2023 period was USD 24.6 billion worldwide, while the Google Play store’s spending reached USD 16.3 billion.
In general terms, the recovery of the sector was also noticeable after the low indicators of 2022. Global in-app spending climbed year-over-year to record USD 67.5 billion and downloads were 76.8 billion. Positive growth in mobile consumer spend returned at a healthy 5.3% year-over-year, and downloads were also up by 3.2%.
Longer-term trends reveal how quickly consumers spend outside of mobile games has accelerated, up more than double since H1 2019. Games have encountered more modest growth in recent years at 25% over the same period.
On a category basis, Games, Tools and Social were the largest by downloads. Meanwhile, Games, Productivity and Tools saw the most growth in absolute downloads half-over-half (HoH).
The top-earning mobile games during the first half of the year saw the usual suspects: Honor of Kings (Tencent), Candy Crush Saga (King), Roblox (Roblox), Coin Master (Moon Active), and Genshin Impact (MiHoYo). Moreover, the top five games by downloads in H1 2023 were the same as the second half of 2022, with Subway Surfers and Free Fire leading the way. Some new entrants included Block Blast Adventure Master from Hungry Studio and Attack Hole from Homa. Another game on the rise in H1 was Gardenscapes, a match-3 title from Playrix.
The Match genre ranked #3 behind only RPG and Strategy genres by global consumer spend in H1 2023. Notably, RPG also had three games among the top 10 (Genshin Impact, Pokémon GO and Monster Strike).