Uma Musume: Pretty Derby gallops past $2.5bn in Japan alone

Cygames' horse girl racer Uma Musume: Pretty Derby has surpassed $2.5 billion in gross lifetime mobile revenue in Japan, achieved in just under four years.

The major milestone was reached on February 4th, 2025, weeks before the fourth anniversary on February 24th.

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby nearly reached its first $1 billion on mobile in its launch year of 2021, according to AppMagic estimates, having ended that year at $965.3 million. There has been significant slowdown since, therefore, with mobile player spending down for three consecutive years to $368.3m in 2024 - just over one-third of where it began.

As estimates consider player spending on Google Play and the App Store, this revenue doesn’t reflect any earnings from the PC version or any alternative stores.

Hot to trot

Uma Musume: Pretty Derby started strong with its first full month, March 2021, remaining its most lucrative four years later. Japanese players spent $127.5m in-game during that time, summoning on the gacha across five staggered banners featuring various characters.

These banners lasted one to two weeks each with daily spending having peaked on March 6th, 2021, during TM Opera O’s focus. She has proceeded to receive five alts in the years since.

March 2021 ended with a transmedia collab, adding Tokai Teio and Mejiro McQueen from the Uma Musume anime as the final banner of the month.

Player spending stayed relatively stable in the months that followed, down from $127.5m in March to $116.7m in April and $112.6m in May. Earnings hit a year-one low of $59.8m in October 2021.

Following this was an observable fall in 2022, having peaked at $89.6m that March but hitting a low of $36.7m in December. Still, the game generated $690.8m over the year and dominated Japan’s top-grossing charts for the second year running.

In 2023, March again proved Pretty Derby’s most lucrative month with $89.4m generated, though fell to a new low of $20.9m that October. It made $451.7m over the full year.

Most recently, the game peaked again in March 2024 - generating $66.8m while benefitting from celebratory anniversary content - but landed at its current record low one month later, down 83% month-over-month to $11.3m last April. Over the course of the year, Pretty Derby made $368.3m on mobile.

Expanding at a snail’s pace

Cygames’ horse girl hit is also available in select regions outside of Japan, such as South Korea and Taiwan.

It was briefly available in China exclusively on Bilibili’s platform back in 2023 but was pulled after just two weeks; the abrupt removal led to speculation that Pretty Derby’s horse racing theme in combination with its gacha was seen to encourage real-world gambling, which is largely outlawed in China.

The racer reached 22m lifetime installs in January 2025, a one million increase in seven months, as the long-awaited English adaptation still awaits release.

A localisation was confirmed in June 2024 via an English teaser trailer, as the West has become increasingly receptive to Japanese media, though Cygames has yet to confirm a launch date for its $2.5m maker.