Highlights
- Mobile games generated $82B in revenue and 50B downloads in 2025 as the market matured.
- Google Play led in total installs, while Apple drove higher in-app purchase revenue.
- Strategy games like Last War: Survival dominated growth in time spent and monetization.
Imagine downloading a new game on your phone. Now imagine 95,000 other people doing the exact same thing in that single minute. That was the everyday reality for the mobile gaming industry throughout 2025.
According to Sensor Tower's newly released State of Gaming 2026 report, players worldwide installed 50 billion mobile titles last year. Of the 52 billion total downloads across all gaming platforms, mobile accounted for nearly all of them.
The reason is straightforward: mobile sidesteps the hardware costs and premium pricing that limit PC and console growth. A phone is already in your pocket. The game is already free.
But behind those numbers, a shift is underway. While 95,000 downloads a minute sounds inexhaustible, overall installs actually fell 7% from the prior year. The mobile games revenue growth rate slowed considerably, and the industry's response has been to stop chasing volume and start chasing value.
How mobile game developers turned fewer downloads into $82 billion
Developers are not panicking over the download dip. Mobile game revenue climbed about 1% year-over-year to $82 billion globally, according to Sensor Tower. The average in-app purchase revenue per download rose to $1.62.
The math tells the story: fewer people are installing games, but the ones who stick around are spending more. Studios have pivoted hard toward retention-first tactics. Off-platform webstores, live-service operations, timed events, and intellectual property crossovers have replaced the old playbook of buying cheap installs and hoping for the best.
Scopely's Hello Kitty event in Monopoly Go is one example of how IP crossovers now function as both a retention tool and a revenue driver. These limited-time collaborations give existing players a reason to re-engage and spend.
Monopoly Go
Google Play vs. Apple App Store: where players download and where they pay
The platform split remains sharp. Google Play accounted for 81% of all mobile game downloads globally. Apple's App Store captured 15% of installs but generated a disproportionately large share of in-app purchase revenue, driven by high-value users concentrated in the United States.
Japan's recent move to open its app stores to alternative payment systems could reshape this dynamic over time. For now, the duopoly holds.
Free-to-play remains the dominant distribution model: 96% of all downloads and 99% on Google Play cost nothing upfront. Monopoly Go pushed the Monopoly brand to the No. 1 spot for mobile revenue, while Roblox drew the bulk of its cross-platform audience from mobile devices.
The Strategy genre was the year's breakout performer. It was the only mobile category to post gains across revenue, downloads, and total time spent. Last War: Survival and Whiteout Survival ranked as the two highest-grossing mobile games of 2025.
Rockstar Games
What PC and console growth means for mobile's next phase
Publishers also changed how they buy ads. YouTube, long associated with PC and console content, captured a larger share of mobile ad budgets in 2025. The goal was reaching committed players rather than inflating download counts.
Sensor Tower CEO and co-founder Oliver Yeh said 2025 proved the strength of the PC and console ecosystem, driven by indie hits, high-quality AA experiences, and triple-A pipelines anchored by Battlefield 6, the year's top-selling title. With Take-Two reaffirming the GTA VI release date, Yeh expects that momentum to carry into 2026.
"Mobile has entered a more mature phase," Yeh said. "Downloads are harder to scale, but the opportunity has shifted to favour developers who prioritise retention, monetisation, and innovation."
The growing reach of platforms like YouTube in markets such as India also points to where mobile publishers may look next for high-value audiences. Webstores and IP partnerships, Yeh added, are the tactics driving sustainable growth from here.
