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Shooters are the sixth biggest mobile genre in the US, finds GameRefinery report

20.56% of the market is held by Call of Duty

Shooters are the sixth biggest mobile genre in the US, finds GameRefinery report

The shooter genre has proven to be popular on mobile and is the sixth biggest category in the US on iOS devices, according to a report by GameRefinery.

Currently, Fortnite accounts for 41 per cent of the market share – the largest by a wide margin – however, the battle royale has seen the most significant drop as it lost 19.55 per cent of the overall market share. In May, Epic Games' title hit $1 billion in lifetime revenue. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Mobile has seen the biggest increase as it holds 20.56 per cent of the market, giving it the third-largest slice.

PUBG Mobile, unsurprisingly, has the second-largest share of the market, although only marginally, as it has 20.92 per cent. However, it is worth noting that in terms of downloads, Call of Duty: Mobile is king with 27.08 per cent in Q2 2020. Hardly surprising given it hit 250 million downloads last month, just eight months after its release.

Top ranks

Of the top 200 grossing shooter games, 75 per cent are more than two years old. However, only eight shooters are part of the overall top 200, with Call of Duty: Mobile and Zooba being the 25 per cent to be younger than two years.

Although, it wasn't until the second "wave" of shooters that the genre began to make an impact among the top-grossing titles. Games such as Fortnite, Garena Free Fire, and PUBG Mobile took the category by storm, propelling it high into the top-grossing ranks. Previously, it was mainly sniper games that could be found in the App Store, until battle royales came along and to shake things up.

However, the third "wave" of shooters has come in the form of titles such as Call of Duty: Mobile, which has brought the classic FPS experience to mobile devices, furthering the genre's impact in the top 200.


Staff Writer

Kayleigh is the Staff Writer for PocketGamer.biz. Besides PGbiz and PCGI she has written as a list writer for Game Rant, rambling about any and all things games related. You can also find her on Twitter talking utter nonsense.