data.ai, a unified data AI company, has dived into the state of competition in the mobile gaming market, finding that globally, the top 10 titles account for just 17% of market share. Despite the clear popularity of some of these games, smaller, niche games hold a much larger market share, highlighting democracy within the gaming market.
Although mobile gaming is home to some huge franchises, the global market as a whole is highly ‘democratic”. The metrics reveal that, globally, the top 10 titles account for just 17% of market share in mobile game consumer spend in H1 2022.
Meanwhile 65% of spend comes from the titles ranked #21 to #1000.
Regionally, the numbers show that Europe and the US skew this way too. In the latter, the top 10 games account for 18% of total consumer spend. This implies there is a substantial opportunity for titles outside the biggest hits to carve out market share.
It’s a different story in other regions. In Brazil 42% of spend goes on the top 10, while in China it’s 50%.
At the two extremes are Open World RPG and Slots. In the Open World RPG space there is only one major player: Genshin Impact. It accounts for 100% of consumer spend. The Luck Battle, Creative Sandbox and Build Battle subgenres are similarly top-heavy.
At the other end, there’s Slots, where just 6% of consumer spend comes from the number one title. This is a highly competitive subgenre.
It’s possible to be positive about both scenarios. A top-heavy market is there to be disrupted when the appeal of the dominant game inevitably wanes. Meanwhile, a more distributed market indicates a consumer base open to innovation and new entrants — whether this be a new game, new genre or new gameplay mechanics.
data.ai’s research indicates that among the US’s biggest subgenres by consumer spend in H1 2022 are #1 Slots (Casino), #2 4x March-Battle (Strategy) and #5 Team Battle (RPG). But here’s the thing; in all three of them the top 3 titles are far from dominant:
- Slots (Casino): the top 3 titles take just 19%,
- 4x March-Battle (Strategy) it’s 26.3%, and
- Team Battle (RPG) it’s 32.7%
In the latter, top 3 titles were all developed by different publishers. These genres represent highly competitive niches with ample opportunity for multiple games to take home a piece of the pie.
