According to the State of the Game Industry Report released by Sensor Tower, in 2025, there were 50 billion downloads of global mobile games, with an average of over 95,000 downloads per minute. The report shows that while the volume of downloads slowed down (by 7 per cent) over the same period, the income performance was more resilient: the applied in-sourcing income increased by 1.4 per cent over the same period to $82 billion, with an average of $1.62 per download.
Google Play contributed 81 per cent of the global game downloads, while App Store contributed 15 per cent. Free games continue to dominate mobile-end development, accounting for 86 per cent of the total downloads and 99 per cent of the Google Play platform. Although App Store has fewer installations than Google Play, it generates a higher share of domestic purchase revenue and a higher penetration rate among high-value user groups, especially in the United States market. The report also found that, in increasingly mature markets, the growth of domestic purchase income benefited from stronger retention and interaction strategies. Real-time operations, time-limited activities and IP linkages play a central role, and the pattern of advertising expenditures reflects this shift. In the category of games, strategic games are the most visible categories of mobile-end performance, the only ones that achieve growth in income, download and user time. Last War: Survival and Whiteout Survival are the top two in the annual mobile game income list. The mobile end remains the lowest threshold of access to users, thanks to the availability of smartphones and free play models. In contrast, PC and mainframe growth is limited to hardware costs and buyout pricing models. With regard to IP, Monopoly Go! pushed IP to top the top of the internal purchase income list at the mobile end; Roblox also performed well, with its large cross-platform player base coming mainly from the mobile side.
The report further found that advertising strategies were also evolving. Historically, YouTube, with a greater focus on PC and mainframe, gained a larger share of the mobile advertising budget in 2025, as distributors started targeting high-value audiences rather than seeking to maximize downloads. “In 2025, Executive Director Oliver Yeh of Sensor Tower stated: “The strong dynamism of the PC/host ecology — the independent explosion of viral transmission, the high-quality 2A medium-size game and the reliable 3As co-driven growth, as evidenced by the annual sales champion, Field 6.” “This momentum will accelerate further in 2026 as GTA6 approaches. At the same time, mobile games have reached a more mature stage. While downloads are difficult to grow on a large scale again, opportunities have shifted to those who prioritize retention, realization and innovation to achieve sustainable growth through strategies such as web shops, IP connections, etc.”
