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Mintegral
Technology
2 documents
Documents
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.
MintegralApr 2026
Report
The State of Games Media Buying United States Spotlight
The United States mobile gaming market maintained its position as a global leader in advertising activity during the first half of 2024. While the region ranks first globally in the total volume of app advertisers, it holds the second position for ad impressions, trailing only Southeast Asia. Despite this high ranking, the market shows signs of maturation and consolidation. The number of active advertisers grew by a marginal 0.25% year-over-year, while the proportion of new advertisers entering the space saw a significant decline of 29%. Similarly, while total ad purchases increased slightly by 0.46%, the volume of new ad creatives decreased by 12%, suggesting a shift toward established players and proven assets. Shifts in genre performance and creative strategy define the current landscape. Puzzle games have overtaken Match games to claim the top spot in ad impression rankings, while the Sports and Shooting genres experienced the most rapid growth, rising six and four places respectively. Conversely, Hypercasual games saw a decline in impression share. Video ads remain the dominant creative format across all major genres, particularly in the Match category where they account for 87% of the ad mix. Playable ads remain a niche but specialized tool, utilized in 13% of Hypercasual campaigns compared to just 1% for Role-Playing Games. Campaign longevity varies significantly by genre, reflecting different monetization and retention strategies. Sports games feature the most enduring campaigns, averaging 47 days, whereas Role-Playing Game campaigns typically run for only 23.6 days. To navigate this competitive environment, publishers are increasingly moving away from pure Hypercasual models toward Hybrid-casual structures, utilizing intelligent bidding and Target ROAS strategies to balance user acquisition costs with long-term profitability. This data, collected between the second half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, indicates that success in the U.S. market now requires a data-driven approach focused on retention and optimized media buying across both major platforms and programmatic SDK networks.
MintegralJan 2024