China's Dominance is On Display - The Highest Earning Mobile Games in the World

Ariel Ariel
11/17/23

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - China's Domination. Check out the full article for more insights.


I crunched the numbers and ranked the highest-earning mobile games in the world in October and September's trend seems to continue! And we don't have to go further than the highest-earning game.

王者荣耀 (King of Glory) was the highest-earning mobile game in the world in October. Our estimates show the China-only title bringing in a massive $120M of net revenue (after store fees) from the App Store and Google Play. Up 15% from September, when the game took the top spot.

And like last month, King of Glory wasn't the only China-only title to make it into the ranks. We'll get back to this trend in a moment.

Monopoly Go was the second highest-earning game in the world in October. Net revenue rose 9% to $102, according to our estimates. And that's all after store fees.

Royal Match, 和平精英 (Peace Elite), and Candy Crush round out the top five. And if you're comparing lists to last month, the top five are identical. Even though the ranks are the same at the top, revenue grew for all but one - Candy Crush.

Candy Crush has been on the decline for a few months now. Both downloads and revenue have been slowly dropping after a looooong period of growth.

China's Dominance is On Display

Let's get back to talking about China. Seeing China-only titles rank in the overall chart is a big deal. Why? Because Google Play isn't available in China, so they need more revenue from the App Store to outrank the combined totals for other titles.

Looking at just the App Store, there are four China-only titles that made this month's top 10. The same set as last month, which happen to be the top earners in China, and include 王者荣耀 (King of Glory), 和平精英 (Peace Elite), 逆水寒 (Justice Online), and 梦幻西游 (Fantasy Westward Journey).

Together, the four earned more than a quarter of a billion dollars - after store fees - in October. Given the growth and how China is closing up to outsiders, I expect to see growth continuing.

According to our App Intelligence, The top 10 highest-earning games in the world earned $677M in October. A small but welcome increase of 8% when compared to September. And in case you skipped right to the end, this total is after store fees.

App Intelligence for Everyone!

The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

Are you a Journalist? You can get access to our app and market intelligence for free through the Appfigures for Journalists program. Contact us for more details.

All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


Related Resources

Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High
Insights
Subscription App Revenue Is at an All-Time High

I recently gave a keynote at the App Promotion Summit about the state of mobile apps. My overall theme was to highlight ...

The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September
Insights
The Rankings Unchanged, But Revenue Soars - The Highest Earning Apps in the World in September

The data has been analyzed, and the top earners across the iOS App Store and Google Play for September 2024 are ready to...