Squad Busters’ supercharged launch, Pokémon’s record revenue, and Star Wars: Hunters finally hits the target
Start your week right with our quick take on the stories that are impacting the mobile industry right now.
To help get you primed and ready for another week in mobile gaming, we’ve curated the biggest stories you need to know from the last seven days.
1) Supercell's Squad Busters generated $1.1m on launch day
On its release day, Supercell’s Squad Busters generated $1.1 million from player spending across Apple’s App Store and Google Play, according to Sensor Tower estimates provided exclusively to PocketGamer.biz.
The US was the biggest revenue generator on day one, followed by Germany and France. As for downloads, Sensor Tower estimates 8.8 million people installed Squad Busters on launch day, marking a significantly stronger start than Brawl Stars’ $340,000 and two million downloads on its launch day in 2018.
Nexon’s Dungeon & Fighter Mobile launched into the global top 10 grossing charts this May, even after releasing late into the month on May 21st, exclusively on China’s App Store. It made the charts with $91 million in gross player spending, landing Dungeon & Fighter above Whiteout Survival, Honkai: Star Rail, Coin Master and more.
Tencent’s Honor of Kings remained on top, naturally, as May’s biggest mobile revenue generator. The MOBA made $217.2 million last month, staying on top despite a fall of 15.9% year-on-year.
3) A galaxy far, far away… Why Star Wars: Hunters took six years to hit the target
Zynga’s Star Wars: Hunters has finally released after a six-year development cycle, releasing cross-platform on mobile and Nintendo Switch. This feature is a key one for Zynga as a previously mobile-only company.
Zynga EVP Yaron Leyvand called this "a huge step forward for Zynga as our first cross-platform competitive shooter" and noted the value of Hunters’ soft launch, which "saw great engagement and input from players".
4) It’s another record-breaking year for Pokémon as revenue reaches $1.9 billion
The Pokémon Company’s latest financial results reveal its strongest year yet with a record-breaking ¥297.5 billion ($1.9 billion) in the last fiscal year. It marks a rise of 15% over the year prior, meanwhile net profits are up 28% to ¥62.7 billion ($402 million).
This record was achieved in a year with no new main series releases, though it did see the launch of Pokémon Sleep on mobile, which generated $67 in the fiscal year according to AppMagic data. Pokémon Go brought in an estimated $837 million in the same period.
5) Mobile app revenue reached a new quarterly record at $35.8 billion in Q1 2024
Sensor Tower and data.ai’s Q1 2024 Mobile Market Overview explores consumer spending, app downloads, markets and mobile games through the first quarter of the year, revealing a "strong bounce back" for mobile spending but faltering download numbers on Android.
While not record-breaking, mobile games surpassed $20 billion for the first time in a single quarter in two years, and quarterly earnings are have been on the rise for over a year. Mobile game revenue also continues to represent roughly two-thirds of all mobile app revenue.
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