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Top 25 public games companies captured 77% of global games revenues in 2017

Tencent, Sony, Apple, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard took the top five spots

Top 25 public games companies captured 77% of global games revenues in 2017

The top 25 public games companies captured 77 per cent of the $121.7 billion global games market in 2017, according to market intelligence firm Newzoo.

Together the firms generated a combined $94.1 billion for the year, which is a 29 per cent increase on the year prior.

Additionally, the top 25 public games companies outpaced the total games market which saw growth of 14 per cent year-on-year.

Chinese publishing giant Tencent led the way for the fifth year running as the company’s games revenues jumped up 51 per cent year-on-year to $18.1 billion - 15 per cent of the total global games market.

Sony, Apple, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard followed on which meant the top five gaming companies were unchanged from 2016.

As opposed to last year, the top 11 to 25 companies also kept pace and grew 24 per cent year-on-year.

On the app

Mobile games continued to show growth in 2017 and made up 46 per cent of revenues earned by the top 25 companies, which was up 41 per cent year-on-year from 2016.

Specifically, 13 out of the top 25 companies earned the majority of their revenues through mobile titles.

This is mostly the case for Japanese companies which were aided by Japanese mobile gamers exhibiting the highest spending habits.

Traditional publishers such as Bandai Namco, Konami, Sega and Square Enix now earn more through mobile games than console.

Konami, well-known for its popular console franchises such as Metal Gear and Silent Hill, generates more than four times as much on mobile than it does on console with titles such as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links leading the way.

According to Konami’s latest financial report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018 , Duel Links has surpassed 65 million downloads.

NCSoft was the fastest riser of the top 25 companies with a year-on-year increase of 104 per cent to $1.5 billion, fuelled mainly by the success of Lineage M.

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Staff Writer

Iain is a freelance writer based in Scotland with a penchant for indies and all things Nintendo. Alongside PocketGamer.Biz, he has also appeared in Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN and VG24/7.