Data.ai's Karl Knights, global VP customer success for Data.ai took to the stage in front of a capacity crowd this morning to share the latest insight from their State of Mobile report 2024. From the best games to the top publishers and winning game genres, Data.ai have got it covered.

As the world's leading provider of data intelligence for the mobile app market Data.ai’s analysis has nailed where the industry is at the beginning of 2024. With 2023’s data in the can they can reveal that 2023 saw:

• 87.9 billion worldwide downloads - that’s down 2% from 2022
• $107.3 billion app store consumer spend - again, down 2% from 2022
• 39 mins spend in daily time - down 5% from 2022
• 363 billion mobile ad spend - up 8% from 2022
• 495 billion total hours spent - up 7% from 2022

It’s clear therefore that 2023 marked a return to a ‘normal’ following the pandemic inflation of 2021 through 2022. And while the initial number do represent a drop, Knights had an interesting insight that notably tipped the charts:

“Take out data from China - the region which has seen the biggest swings from Covid to post-covid era - and the numbers actually produce an increase of on consumer spend of an impressive 4%.”

It’s clear therefore that even through the ‘normalising’ of 2023, the overall trend is on upward growth and that’s only set to continue through 2024.

One interesting new insight was when comparing the spend on mobile apps Vs disposable income. Knights showed that broadly speaking, since 2020 the level of spending on apps has tracked the availability of disposable income.

However the same graph when applied to games exclusively showed that while app spending moved in line with 2023’s cost of living worries, the spending on game apps continued on a steady incline.

Similarly, while downloads remained generally flat since 2020 at around 1.1 billion, consumer spend within them increased to $1,500 million in 2023, up from $1,200 in 2020.

And as if further evidence on the passion for games were needed, Knight revealed that the presence of GTA on Netflix games drove 22 million downloads in just two weeks.

The Billion Dollar Club

And speaking of big games, what’s the state of play for the billion dollar club - games that, over their lifespan have earned more than $1 billion?

Perhaps unsurprisingly zero new apps joined the Billion Dollar Club in 2022, in line with industry downturns but the good news is that four games joined in 2023 - Royal Match, Google 1, HBO Max and Gardenscapes. And with a predicted trajectory behind it, Knights predicted that it wouldn’t be too long before Monopoly GO! - one of the report’s consistent high rollers - joining them.

Finally in the world of genres hypercasual’s drop of 7,5% in downloads ranked alongside the RPG genre’s massive growth - up 19.2% - for the headlines, with mobile ad spend set to pass $400 billion in the year ahead.

You can find out more about Data.ai’s State of Mobile 2024 report here.

There’s a lot more still to discover from PGC London 2024, with talks and conversations ongoing through January 22 and 23. Find out more about what's on and how you can be part of it here.