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2016's top five grossing mobile games in the US made up 28% of all revenues

Branded IPs are up, especially if you consider Clash Royale one

2016's top five grossing mobile games in the US made up 28% of all revenues

The top five grossing mobile games of 2016 generated 28% of the US mobile market's revenues in 2016.

That's according to a new joint report from Sega Networks and Sensor Tower, who collaborated on a US Mobile Market Report for 2016. It analysed 362 games that generated at least $250,000 in combined revenues on iOS and Android for one month in 2016.

While the top five companies generated a significant proportion of the mobile market's revenue, this is actually down from 40% in 2015.

Annual overall revenues from mobile companies increased 7% to $6.15 billion in 2016.

Clash Royale topped the grossing charts for games released in 2016 in the US, generating $277.1 million. Pokemon GO was close behind with $270.2 million. Revenues dropped sharply from there – the third top grossing game was Lords Mobile, which generated $18.1 million.

Big spenders

The disparity between revenues is such that Clash Royale and Pokemon GO alone generated 83% of the revenues of the top ten games launched in 2016. Pokemon GO also accounted for 37% of all downloads in the top ten.

Image credit: Sega and Sensor Tower

Overall for games old and new, MZ was the top publisher for 2016, with Game of War and Mobile Strike generating a combined $917.5 million.

Supercell came second with $809.2 million, while King, Playtika and Niantic made up the rest of the top five publishers.

The report also found that while games using original IPs saw a 30% growth in revenues, branded IPs are rapidly catching up with a 139% growth in 2016. The report claims that branded IP games should surpass original IP in terms in revenues generated in 2018.

It should be noted that Clash Royale is considered a branded IP since it is based on Clash of Clans.

Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.