Mobile Games Report: H1 2024

The mobile gaming live-streaming landscape experienced a period of stabilization during the first half of 2024, following a post-pandemic decline in general viewership. While mobile games accounted for 7% of total live-streaming hours in the second quarter of 2024, the sector demonstrated resilience with a 4% year-over-year increase in viewership compared to the same period in 2023. The industry is increasingly defined by a shift toward esports, which saw a 52% growth in hours watched between 2022 and 2023, now representing nearly half of all mobile gaming viewership.

YouTube Gaming maintains a dominant position in the mobile sector, capturing 69% of total mobile hours watched and 77% of mobile esports viewership in the first half of 2024. This success is heavily driven by audiences in India and Indonesia, which account for over 50% of the platform's mobile gaming traffic. Conversely, Twitch and Kick remain more popular in Western markets, where Spanish and English-language content dominates. Despite Twitch’s overall lead in general live streaming, mobile content represents only 1.2% of its total viewership, highlighting a significant platform-specific disparity in content focus.

The market is currently led by a small group of titles, specifically Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Garena Free Fire, and various Battle Royale titles like PUBG Mobile and BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA. These games, primarily within the Shooter, Battle Royale, and MOBA genres, consistently outperform more casual titles. Publisher performance remains volatile and closely tied to the success of these flagship games; for instance, Supercell saw a 183% increase in viewership over the last four quarters, driven almost entirely by the surge in Brawl Stars. These insights are derived from comprehensive tracking of live-streaming platforms and esports events, providing a granular view of regional preferences and genre dominance for industry stakeholders.