Mobile game downloads decline for fourth year, engagement and revenue up

Mobile games saw 49.3 billion downloads in 2024—a decline of 6.5 percent from 2023, and 14 percent lower than an all-time high set in 2020, according to new data from Sensor Tower.

Despite the decline in downloads, mobile games saw year-over-year improvements in both in-app revenue and time spent playing games, suggesting that mobile publishers are building stickier games, and getting better about extracting revenue from games.

In 2024, people spent an estimated 390 billion hours playing mobile games, roughly 7.7 percent higher than time spent gaming the year before. Mobile games pulled in an estimated $81.7 billion in in-app revenue last year, a little over $3 billion more than 2023, according to Sensor Tower.

More than 60 percent of the world’s population lives in Asia, so it’s no surprise that Asia leads the world in mobile game downloads (21 billion) and in-app revenue ($38 billion). But growth stalled last year in Asia, which saw a 3 percent year-over-year decline in revenue, and a 6 percent year-over-year decline in downloads.

On a country level, downloads and in-app revenue were either flat or down in Asia’s four biggest mobile markets: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

The United States is the single biggest country on the planet for both mobile game downloads and in-app revenue, generating $25.8 billion in mobile game revenue alone in 2024—or roughly 1 out of every 3 mobile dollars worldwide.

In-app mobile game revenue grew in the U.S. by 8.8 percent year-over-year, while mobile game downloads declined by around 10 percent.

Scopely’s 2023 breakout hit Monopoly Go! was the most lucrative mobile game of the year, bringing in more than $2.5 billion alone.

The most successful new game launch of the year was Pokemon TCG Pocket, which generated an estimated $5.3 million per day—roughly equivalent to $1.9 billion per year if its revenue remains constant.

Chinese mobile giant Tencent is the largest mobile game publisher of the year, bringing in more than $10 billion in revenue last year, according to Sensor Tower. Its next-closest competitor, Scopely, pulled in an estimated $3 billion.