Data & Research

Weekly consumer mobile games spend grows by 35% in Q3 2021

Emerging markets are contributing to the ongoing increase in consumer spend

Weekly consumer mobile games spend grows by 35% in Q3 2021

This article is part of an ongoing series of data-driven articles from PocketGamer.biz and App Annie highlighting trends in the global mobile games sector using App Annie’s Game IQ analytics.

This enables mobile game developers to dig into the data and discover not only which games are performing best but what characteristics they have.

Despite fears of a post-pandemic crash in the global mobile games market, the latest data shows an ongoing increase in consumer spend in mobile games, with Q3 2021 showing a 35 per cent increase in weekly consumer spend compared to pre-pandemic levels.

This increase is directly linked to a quarterly global spend of almost $23 billion dollars.

The US and Japan were the largest markets for consumer spend in Q3 on both iOS and Google Play. Japan and Taiwan were among the largest growth drivers of gaming spend across both iOS and Google Play.

Much of this growth is being seen in emerging markets around the world, with mobile phone ownership - and mobile gaming - showing growth. The increasing availability of devices in new markets and improving connectivity is putting mobile games into the hands of ever more new players around the world.

Google Play

India, Brazil and Indonesia were the largest markets by game downloads in the third quarter of the year, with Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines driving the biggest growth of absolute downloads.

iOS

The United States, China and Japan remain the largest markets for game downloads, while China, Vietnam and South Korea were the largest drivers of growth.

Following the leaders, Russia boasted the next highest consumer spend for Q3 2021 on Google Play, while Australia held the same position for iOS. Given the country’s population is less than one-tenth that of the USA, it shows a highly engaged consumer audience, with a willingness to spend money in mobile games.

Globally games account for 66 cents of every $1 spent in the app stores in Q3, accounting for for 77% of consumer spend on Google Play and 60% on iOS. On iOS, consumer spend grew 10 per cent year over year to hit $13 billion, while Google Play also grew 10 per cent year-on-year to approximately $9 Billion.

In terms of market share, iOS accounts for 60 per cent of the gaming market’s consumer spend. In terms of downloads, games accounted for 44 per cent of all Google Play downloads, but only 29 per cent of the total downloads on iOS.

Game IQ is a vertically tailored analytics product, developed by App Annie, that provides insight into dimensions such as class, genre, subgenre and tags. Games can now be analysed by broad category class (tuning), genre, subgenre, and tags (modifiers) such as IP, art style, settings, monetisation mechanic, and more.

For more information register for a demo here.

PocketGamer.biz regularly posts content from a variety of guest writers across the games industry. These encompass a wide range of topics and people from different backgrounds and diversities, sharing their opinion on the hottest trending topics, undiscovered gems and what the future of the business holds.