China, Japan and Taiwan post biggest global growth in mobile games market in Q2

Mobile consumers are set to download more than 13.5 billion games and spend more than US$21.4bn in the second quarter of 2022, with Asian markets leading the charge to maintain the sector’s COVID-fuelled boom, according to a report by unified data AI company data.ai.

Why it matters

Research confirms that mobile is now the leading force in gaming and generates 60% of global gaming spend, thanks to its wide demographic reach and gameplay range.

Key insights

• Mobile gaming generated 30% more revenue in Q2 2022 than it did in the pre-pandemic quarter of Q2 2019.
• The highest growth subgenres quarter over quarter are poised to be: #1 MMORPG (RPG) Games, #2 MOBA (Action) and #3 4X March-Battle (Strategy).
• MMORPG (RPG) alone is set to generate an additional US$380m in consumer spend over Q1 2022, bringing the Q2 total to over US$2.4bn, up 20% quarter on quarter.
• Games are set to account for 65 cents of every US$1 spent in the two app stores in Q2 2022 and poised to contribute 72% of consumer spend on Google Play and 62% on the iOS store.
• iOS saw stronger performance over the past 12 months with global gaming consumer spend set to hit US$13.3bn in Q2 2022.
• Google Play is set to reach US$8.2bn, a slight softening in spend due in part to the removal of app stores payment processing in Russia amidst the conflict in Eastern Europe.
• Regionally, China, the United States, and Japan were the largest contributors to iOS game consumer spend in Q2 2022.
• But the markets that showed the most growth in terms of absolute volume over the quarter were China, Japan and Taiwan.
• On Google Play the US, Japan and South Korea led the way in Q2 2022, with Australia, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong registering the biggest quarterly rises in terms of spend volume.