India’s mobile gaming market continues to grow rapidly, surpassing Brazil and the United States in terms of total games downloaded in the first half of this year, according to a report by Apptica.

Apptica’s report reveals that Indian consumers downloaded a total of 4.32 billion games, accounting for 15.29% of the global market, experiencing a 0.9% increase compared to the same period in 2022. Brazil followed with 2.99 billion downloads (10.59%) and the United States with 2.57 billion (9.08%).

Despite leading in terms of downloads, India did not rank among the top 15 markets for revenue. The United States took the first place with $5.71 billion and a market share of 26.61%, followed by Japan with $4.17 billion (19.43%), and China with $3.32 billion (15.05%).

When it comes to platforms, Google Play dominated the downloads with an 88.63% market share, while the App Store accounted for only 11.37%. However, in terms of revenue, the App Store surpassed Google Play with a market share of 56.26%, compared to Google Play’s 43.74%. This suggests that while Android is catching up to iOS in terms of revenue, individual iOS users are spending more on average compared to Android users.

Market Dominance

Most genres saw a decline in downloads in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Casual games remained the most downloaded genre with 4.15 billion downloads, although there was a slight market share increase of 0.62%.

The casual genre dominated in the majority of countries worldwide, particularly in Portugal with a market share of 18.9%. In contrast, Indonesia had a lower share of 13.2% for the casual genre.

Action, the second most popular genre, experienced a drop in share from 4.29 billion to 3.9 billion, with a market share reduction of 0.18%. Simulation games took the third place with 3.27 billion downloads.

All genres experienced a decline in revenue compared to the previous year, indicating a trend of normalization in the market following the “Covid boom”.

The top three highest-earning genres remained unchanged from H1 2022. RPG once again dominated with $4.48 billion in revenue, followed by strategy at $2.83 billion and action games at $2.3 billion. RPG’s market share also declined by 3.2%.

Despite having the highest downloads, the casual genre generated $1.93 billion in revenue in H1 2023. On the other hand, RPG genre downloads were relatively low, ranking tenth with 1.37 billion downloads. This suggests that although the casual genre remains popular with consumers, it struggles to convert them into paying customers. In contrast, the RPG genre appeals to high-value consumers who are willing to spend money.

RPG games performed well in several markets in terms of revenue, particularly in South Korea, where the genre accounted for 47.6% of mobile gaming earnings. However, RPG games had a lower market share of just 12.2% in Italy and Spain.

Subway Surfers was the most downloaded title on Android with 116.5 million downloads in the period, and it ranked seventh on the iOS charts. Eggy Party took the first place on the iOS charts with 32.2 million downloads.

Coin Master emerged as the most profitable title on Android in H1 2023, generating $228 million. However, Honour of Kings dominated on the iOS platform, earning a whopping $766 million.

In January, Apptica reported that Android accounted for 71% of all advertising traffic.