Global mobile gamers have already spent about $44.7 billion within the first half of 2021.
According to Sensor Tower estimates shared with GamesIndustry.biz, there is a 17.9% increase when compared to the first six months of 2020. Apple's App Store made up for more than half of this at about $26 billion, which is an increase of 13.5% year-on-year, while games spent on Google’s Play Store rose 24.7% to $18.7 billion.
The highest grossing games for 2021 so far were Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Genshim Impact, Roblox and Coin Master respectively. PUBG Mobile revenues include those of Game For Peace, which is the iOS version released specifically for China.
The total consumer spending across both Apple and Google's stores reached $64.9 billion, which means that games accounted for 68.9% of all dollars spent. iOS spending was higher with the App Store again taking $41.5 billion, up 22.1% year-on-year. In the meantime Google Play store spending rose 30% to $23.4 billion.
Downloads surprisingly went down slightly at 28.1 billion, down 1.4% when compared to 2020. This is because of the 22.8% decline seen on the App Store, with total downloads coming in at 4.4 billion. Google Play store downloads grew 3.9% to 23.7 billion.
The most downloaded games were Join Clash 3D, Garena Free Fire, High Heels, Bridge Race and Among US in that order.