Market (Mobile)

Reports in the Market (Mobile) category.

175 documents

State of Gaming 2026

The 2026 State of Gaming analysis demonstrates a shifting landscape in which mobile gaming remains the largest driver of downloads—approximately 50 billion in 2025—but its growth rate is slowing. Revenue, however, continues to climb as monetization models mature and lifetime value deepens, especially within hybrid‑casual titles that now generate the most incremental income. In contrast, PC and console platforms experience record revenue growth, with Steam’s premium segment up 32 % and blockbuster releases such as Battlefield 6 capturing significant market share from incumbents. Shooter downloads on these platforms have plateaued, suggesting new titles are primarily cannibalizing existing audiences rather than expanding the category. Genre‑specific dynamics reveal that strategy games are the only mobile genre to grow in downloads, driven by 4X titles from Eastern developers. Action and shooter games dominate PC/console gains, while hyper‑casual remains the largest download engine but shows a notable lift in time spent, particularly in Tier 2 markets. Casual titles face declining day‑7 retention, indicating a stickiness challenge that could erode long‑term player value. Live‑ops and acquisition strategies have evolved toward retention‑focused events, multi‑tier season passes, and expedition‑style rewards. These mechanisms now represent the most reliable revenue drivers across competitive genres such as RPG, action, and simulation. Advertising spend remains concentrated on social channels—YouTube, Facebook/Instagram—and high‑attention formats like video, playable, and rewarded ads. Battlefield 6’s pre‑launch spend surpassed Call of Duty titles, leveraging Facebook, Reddit, and desktop display, while its post‑launch strategy pivoted to YouTube with cinematic, celebrity‑hook creatives. Geographically, the U.S. market shows a skew toward lifestyle and puzzle categories despite lower IAP shares, whereas casino titles exhibit higher spend‑to‑revenue efficiency. Overall, the industry is moving from acquisition toward deeper monetization per user, with indie shooters and simulation titles gaining traction amid intense competition in the shooter segment.

market-analysis monetization mobile+1

Sensor TowerApr 2026

Report

Ad Monetization Without Killing Retention

Hybrid monetization can increase revenue without eroding player retention by treating advertisements as an integral part of the game’s design system. Three core ad formats—interstitials, rewarded video (RV), and banners—are positioned strategically through careful gating on level progression, playtime, or cooldown periods. Optimal triggers and placement reduce player frustration while maximizing eCPM, ensuring that monetization flows naturally with gameplay. Rewarded video is most effective when offered during high‑stakes moments such as revives, boosters, or time‑limited rewards. Leveraging scarcity and urgency in these contexts drives conversions while preserving the core experience. Consistent visual cues, a clear distinction between coin rewards and RV value, and optional “No Ads” bundles further balance monetization with player comfort. Selling “No Ads” bundles requires thoughtful presentation. Bundles should appear side‑by‑side with regular items, use distinct visual cues and anchoring to convey high value, and be gated behind a minimum purchase tier to protect payer retention. Segmenting ad exposure—capping impressions, applying cooldowns, and filtering out disruptive creatives—maintains a positive user experience while sustaining revenue. Overall, the strategy blends ad formats with gameplay mechanics, employs scarcity and urgency for rewarded video, and offers high‑value “No Ads” options. This approach delivers robust monetization across diverse segments while safeguarding long‑term player engagement and retention.

monetization in-game-advertising live-ops+2

Sensor TowerApr 2026

Report

2026 Global Non‑Gaming App Trends Report

The report argues that non‑gaming mobile applications are experiencing accelerated growth driven by AI integration, short‑form content, and intensified user acquisition competition. Key findings show that Android dominates download volume—particularly in Utilities (79 % of installs) and Life Services (58 %)—while iOS generates a higher share of revenue, especially in Finance & Business (56 % of iOS revenue) and Life Services (57 %). In 2025, AI‑focused apps such as ChatGPT (+1,340 %) and Perplexity (+3,613 %) achieved the highest year‑over‑year download growth, and Short Drama titles like Kuku TV (+45 % k) and RapidTV (+498 %) recorded explosive revenue increases, with AI Social apps (e.g., Character AI +918 %) also driving significant monetization. User acquisition activity expanded across all major categories, with Life Services (+42 %) and Finance & Business (+43.5 %) leading the rise in app counts. Smart bidding adoption surged, with Target ROAS spend increasing by 50 % and Target CPE spending up 57 %, particularly in Utilities and Entertainment. Cost‑per‑install (CPI) analysis revealed that E‑Commerce on Android commands a 3× premium, while Finance & Business on iOS reaches 4.6×, underscoring high competition for transactional users. Monetization patterns shift toward in‑app advertising (IAA), dominating across Education, Utilities, and Entertainment. Video formats—rewarded and interstitial—outperform banner ads by 128–165× eCPM, with North America delivering the highest rewarded video eCPMs (up to 11.8× in Short Drama). The report covers global markets excluding Mainland China from January to December 2025, drawing on anonymized data from Mintegral and Insightrackr across 100+ key app categories.

market-analysis monetization user-acquisition

MintegralApr 2026

Report

State of Mobile 2026

The 2026 State of Mobile report demonstrates that the global mobile ecosystem remains mature yet increasingly monetized, with 2025 in‑app purchase (IAP) revenue reaching $85.6 billion—a 21 % year‑over‑year rise that now places non‑game apps ahead of games for the first time. Generative AI and short‑form drama have become the fastest‑growing subgenres, driving double‑digit IAP growth; AI assistants such as ChatGPT alone generated $3.4 billion in 2025, while short‑drama apps captured more than ten percent of global video‑entertainment time. These categories also show a shift from acquisition to retention, with session volumes outpacing downloads and time spent tripling in AI apps. Hybrid‑casual and hyper‑casual games continue to lead revenue growth, especially in Tier 2 markets where downloads are falling but engagement is surging. Publishers targeting these segments can capture higher revenue per user, though they face tighter ad‑spend competition and a move toward high‑attention formats. In the gaming web arena, Roblox dominates with 74 % of game‑publisher site visits in 2025, underscoring the importance of product‑centric web design. Beyond entertainment, general‑shopping apps such as Temu and Amazon maintain massive download volumes, with grocery and buy‑and‑sell subgenres growing 5 % and 4 % YoY, respectively. Food & drink apps hit a record 2.4 billion downloads in 2025, driven largely by emerging markets like India and the Middle East. Mobility and sports apps also show notable shifts: Waymo’s standalone app captured 15 % of rideshare MAUs in key U.S. metros, while DFS‑style sports betting apps now command 80 % of the betting‑app MAU share, reflecting regulatory impacts and new market entrants. Overall, the report covers a global geographic scope with particular emphasis on the U.S., India, Western Europe, and emerging Tier 2 markets. It spans 2025 data with forward‑looking insights for 2026, highlighting AI’s transformative role across monetization, user engagement, and competitive dynamics in the mobile industry.

market-analysis monetization ai

Sensor TowerApr 2026

Report

Why Chance-Based Mechanics Keep Us Hooked

Chance-based mechanics drive player engagement by prioritizing the psychological thrill of anticipation over the actual value of rewards. This engagement is rooted in the release of dopamine during the period of uncertainty, where the wait for a result creates more neurological stimulation than the prize itself. By utilizing unpredictable reward schedules and the "near-miss" effect, developers foster a persistent belief that a significant win is imminent. This strategy is exemplified by the commercial success of Monopoly GO!, which generates between $100 million and $125 million in monthly revenue through a "saw-tooth" gameplay loop that oscillates between resource depletion and sudden, event-driven recovery. The effectiveness of these systems relies on a "pressure and release" cycle designed to maintain emotional tension without causing player burnout. High-volatility mechanics, such as digital wheels and randomized heists, are tuned to prioritize emotional impact over mathematical fairness. For instance, probabilities are often manipulated to limit low-tier prizes—sometimes to as little as 13%—while visually emphasizing jackpots to maximize excitement. Even traditionally negative outcomes are reframed as positive opportunities; in certain high-performing titles, escape rates from penalty mechanics like "Jail" are set as high as 80% to ensure the player remains within the rewarding flow of the game. Ultimately, long-term retention is achieved through the careful management of sensory-rich animations and gacha-style collection systems that create frequent "emotional spikes." By blending live events with boosters that temporarily alter the odds, developers create a dynamic environment where the player feels a constant sense of progression. This sophisticated orchestration of risk, hope, and visual feedback ensures that the psychological journey toward a potential reward remains compelling enough to sustain high levels of monetization and daily active usage across the mobile gaming landscape.

monetization player-behavior game-design+1

Sensor TowerJan 2026

Report

Mobile Game Feature Impact Spotlight

Sensor Tower introduces Game IQ Deep Tags, a taxonomy of 70 specialized markers designed to analyze the impact of specific mobile game features on market performance. These tags are categorized into gameplay, monetization, engagement, and social elements, providing developers with a framework to benchmark competitor roadmaps and identify high-value feature sets. The analysis covers the top 1,000 mobile games globally from Q2 2024 through Q1 2025, a segment representing 16 billion downloads and $67 billion in consumer spend. The findings reveal that feature density does not always correlate with market dominance. In the casual puzzle genre, titans like Royal Match and Candy Crush Saga utilize fewer luxury features, such as voice acting or cinematic cutscenes, compared to competitors like Gardenscapes, suggesting that core gameplay often outweighs feature volume. Conversely, in the mid-core RPG and strategy sectors, comprehensive monetization and engagement systems are standard. For instance, Age of Empires Mobile demonstrates high revenue per download by utilizing nearly all available monetization tags, while top RPGs leverage IP collaborations and recurring task systems to maximize player retention and session length. The research identifies significant growth opportunities in the hybridcasual segment, where features like in-app purchase (IAP) bundles remain underutilized despite correlating with a $1.77 increase in lifetime revenue per download. Additionally, portfolio analysis of top publishers like Tencent, Scopely, and King shows a universal prioritization of login systems to track player data, while specific mechanics like "monetized retries" remain niche to casual puzzle specialists. Ultimately, the data suggests that strategic feature implementation, rather than exhaustive adoption, is the primary driver of commercial success across different mobile gaming verticals.

market-analysis global mobile+1

Sensor TowerJun 2025

Report

Mobile Games Industry Trends Survey: Winter 2024/25

The mobile games industry entered a period of significant recalibration during the winter of 2024/25, characterized by a transition from rapid expansion to a focus on long-term sustainability. While the market is returning to growth, it is currently defined by a "reality check" phase where 56.7% of professionals identify widespread layoffs as the year’s most impactful trend. High user acquisition costs and evolving privacy regulations have created a consolidated landscape favoring established organizations, as evidenced by the fact that nearly 39% of companies have operated for over a decade while the presence of new startups has notably diminished. Strategic priorities have shifted toward maintaining existing portfolios through live operations and hybrid-casual models rather than launching new intellectual property. Over 40% of organizations released no new titles in the past year, choosing instead to prioritize top-line revenue and retention as their primary performance indicators. In-app purchases and video advertisements remain the foundational business models, though rising acquisition costs are cited by 64.2% of respondents as the greatest threat to continued profitability. Despite these headwinds, the industry maintains a cautiously optimistic outlook for 2025, with 44.1% of professionals expressing confidence in the coming year. Growth opportunities are increasingly sought in emerging markets, particularly the MENA region, and through strategic networking at global industry summits. Professional events remain vital for the ecosystem, with nearly 90% of participants attending for networking and over 31% seeking investment or publishing partnerships. As the industry moves forward, the reliance on proven development tools like Unity and a data-driven approach to player retention will be essential for navigating a market that increasingly rewards operational efficiency and established brand presence over speculative new ventures.

market-analysis mobile global

PocketGamer.bizMar 2025

Report

Mobile Gaming 2022-2024

The analysis tracks mobile‑gaming dynamics from 2022 through 2024, arguing that the sector’s financial expansion now exceeds its ability to attract new users. Revenue on Google Play rose roughly 10 % year‑on‑year in 2023‑24 while download volumes stagnated or slipped slightly, and iOS revenue grew about 12 % against an 8 % rise in downloads. Despite this divergence, the concentration of earnings among the top ten publishers has held steady, indicating that market power remains entrenched even as overall spend accelerates. Consumer‑device preferences reveal a near‑universal reliance on smartphones, with 97 % of Brazilian gamers using mobile phones in 2024 and personal PCs ranking as the only other significant platform; console usage is negligible. Across the United States and Brazil, the primary incentives for trying a new title are free‑to‑play pricing, recognizable brands or characters, and easy access through subscription services. Gender nuances appear modest: men place greater value on non‑pay‑to‑win structures and strong single‑player experiences, whereas women are drawn to customizable avatars and peer recommendations. Behavioral data show a pronounced tendency toward deep engagement with a single game. Approximately half of respondents in Brazil, Germany, Japan and the United States report completing one title before moving to the next, suggesting that the market favors sustained, title‑centric play rather than rapid turnover. The findings collectively underscore a maturing mobile‑gaming ecosystem where revenue growth is driven by monetisation depth and brand loyalty rather than sheer user acquisition.

market-analysis in-game-advertising mobile+1

Mariusz Gasiewski (Google)Jan 2025

Report

Rewarded Returns

Rewarded Returns explores the evolution of reward-based user acquisition (UA) from its origins as a controversial incentivized traffic tactic to a sophisticated, data-driven pillar of modern mobile game marketing. The primary thesis is that technological advancements and deeper reward structures have effectively addressed legacy concerns regarding fraud and user quality, positioning rewarded UA as a high-performance alternative to traditional channels in an increasingly challenging privacy-centric landscape. The findings are based on a late 2024 survey of 502 mobile game developers in the United States and United Kingdom, primarily representing mid-sized companies with 50 to 100 employees. While 64% of respondents characterize the current UA environment as challenging due to privacy rules and high costs, 77% have already integrated reward-based campaigns into their strategies. Among these adopters, 82% report that rewarded campaigns outperform traditional UA, and 95% believe these strategies provide a distinct competitive advantage. Furthermore, 79% of developers observe stronger long-term retention from rewarded users compared to non-rewarded sources. The study identifies a significant shift in perception, noting that fraud concerns for rewarded UA (47%) are now nearly identical to those for traditional channels (46%). Despite these lingering concerns, 59% of current users plan to expand their rewarded UA budgets in 2025. Among non-adopters, 62% express concern about falling behind competitors, and 43% intend to adopt the strategy in the coming year. Looking ahead, the scope of the industry is expected to expand, with 90% of experienced developers predicting that reward-based mechanisms will move beyond mobile and web into console gaming. The conclusion emphasizes that as the industry moves toward 2025, real-world rewards—particularly cash and gift cards—are becoming a fundamental discovery and engagement mechanism rather than a mere experimental tactic.

user-acquisition monetization in-game-advertising+1

AlmediaJan 2025

Report

Intelligence Top Mobile Games Challenges: A User Acquisition, Ad & Product Monetization Report

The mobile gaming landscape heading into 2025 is defined by the critical difficulty of performing within an increasingly crowded market space. Approximately 41% of user acquisition managers identify market saturation and rising costs per installment as their primary obstacles, driven largely by intense competition from non-gaming entities. This environment has forced a strategic pivot away from traditional acquisition tactics toward sustainable growth rooted in long-term retention and creative iteration. Consequently, the industry is transitioning from a focus on sheer volume to a model centered on maximizing lifetime user value through sophisticated engagement strategies. Ad monetization and product management sectors face parallel pressures, specifically regarding effective user segmentation and the declining value of electronic cost per mille (eCPM). While segmentation is the most widespread concern for monetization teams, senior executives are particularly focused on innovating new revenue streams to compensate for diminishing ad returns. In the realm of product management, LiveOps development and the accurate assessment of return on investment have emerged as the dominant priorities. Nearly 30% of product managers rank LiveOps as their most significant challenge, outweighing traditional concerns such as game economy balancing or initial prototype testing. To navigate these hurdles, the industry is moving toward data-driven personalization and revenue diversification. Success in the maturing mobile market now requires leveraging artificial intelligence for audience segmentation and expanding monetization models to include subscriptions and alternative storefronts. By moving beyond simple acquisition hacks and focusing on robust LiveOps and incremental growth through retention, developers aim to stabilize revenue in a volatile privacy-centric environment. This shift underscores a broader industry evolution where deep audience understanding and operational agility are the primary drivers of commercial viability.

monetization user-acquisition in-game-advertising+2

AppLovinJan 2025

Report

How to Prepare Your Live Ops for the Holiday Season

A well‑designed Live Ops strategy is essential for capitalising on the heightened player activity that occurs during the holiday period. Analysis of hundreds of mobile games worldwide demonstrates that a coherent Live Ops framework can produce a substantial uplift in sessions, revenue and player retention throughout the season. The core argument is that developers should treat the holidays as a series of tightly integrated, short‑term experiences that reinforce the game’s everyday loop while delivering clear, time‑bound incentives. Short‑term events that run for one to three days are most effective for generating quick spikes in engagement. These events focus on immediate objectives—such as a burst of sessions, a specific resource collection, or a limited‑time reward—while employing a “soft‑sawtooth” difficulty curve that eases players in, ramps up challenge, offers a brief respite, and then escalates again. By keeping the event mechanics a natural extension of the main gameplay loop, developers avoid disrupting player expectations and maintain momentum. For the broader holiday window, the most successful structures combine a single, clearly defined Battle‑Pass progression path with social‑cooperation events that reward group performance through prestige items like avatars, badges and leaderboard positions. Layering weekly quests, long‑term collection albums, and brief “bonus amplifier” events creates cumulative engagement loops. Linking these components through shared currencies and diversified motivations systematically drives both retention and monetisation, particularly for mature titles that benefit from community‑driven competition. Overall, the guidance applies to the global mobile gaming sector during the Q4 holiday season and emphasizes that incremental, interconnected events—anchored by transparent progression and social incentives—are the key levers for maximising holiday‑season performance.

live-ops monetization player-behavior+2

Sensor TowerJan 2025

Market (Mobile)

State of Gaming 2026

Ad Monetization Without Killing Retention

2026 Global Non‑Gaming App Trends Report

State of Mobile 2026

The Gaming App Insights Report

Why Chance-Based Mechanics Keep Us Hooked

Mobile Game Feature Impact Spotlight

Mobile Games Industry Trends Survey: Winter 2024/25

Mobile Gaming 2022-2024

Rewarded Returns

Intelligence Top Mobile Games Challenges: A User Acquisition, Ad & Product Monetization Report

How to Prepare Your Live Ops for the Holiday Season