Mobile games are struggling to find new players
Mobile is the largest part of the games business, and it grew for years on rising downloads. That stopped in 2020. Advertising spending is rising while downloads fall, so each new player costs more to find.
Where it stands
Sensor Tower's figures show mobile game downloads falling from 57.6 billion in 2020 to 49.3 billion in 2024. Spending inside games peaked at $87.4 billion in 2021 and has stayed near $80 billion since. In the first half of 2026 both fell. Even the strongest genre, 4X strategy, turned down in mid-2026, according to Naavik's Max Abrahamsen. These figures count only Apple's and Google's stores, and Newzoo, which counts more widely, still expects mobile to grow in 2026.
- Downloads
- Spending in games
Downloads and spending rose together until 2020. Since then downloads have fallen back while spending has stayed near its 2021 peak. Later years use a restated series and are left off.
SourceSensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025
| Year | Downloads (billions) | Spending in games ($ billions) |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 36.2 | 47.2 |
| 2018 | 39.3 | 54.1 |
| 2019 | 44.4 | 63.5 |
| 2020 | 57.6 | 79.5 |
| 2021 | 56.7 | 87.4 |
| 2022 | 56 | 79.2 |
| 2023 | 52.7 | 78.6 |
| 2024 | 49.3 | 81.7 |
Timeline
2020
Mobile game downloads peak in the first pandemic year
Downloads of mobile games jump from 44.4 billion in 2019 to 57.6 billion in 2020, and spending inside them from $63.5 billion to $79.5 billion. Downloads have not been as high since.
Sensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025 (March 2025), page 5
2021
Apple makes apps ask before tracking users
From 26 April 2021 every iPhone app must ask permission before tracking a user across other apps. Without permission, the identifier that advertisers use to follow a user is blanked.
Spending in mobile games peaks at $87.4 billion
Spending inside mobile games reaches $87.4 billion, a level it has not returned to. Downloads slip to 56.7 billion.
Sensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025 (March 2025), page 5
2022
Spending on mobile games falls for the first time
Spending falls year on year in both of the first two quarters of 2022, by 6% and 6.9%, the first such falls Sensor Tower has recorded. It blames inflation, the cost of living and Apple's tracking change.
2024
Downloads hit their lowest since 2019 as spending recovers a little
Downloads fall 6%, to their lowest total since 2019. Spending grows 4%, its first rise after two years of falls.
Google removes nearly half the apps in its store
Between the start of 2024 and early 2025, a crackdown on low-quality apps cuts the number of apps on Google Play by about 47%.
2025
Downloads fall 7.2% and spending rises 1.3%
Sensor Tower's report on 2025 has mobile game downloads down 7.2% at 50.41 billion and spending up 1.3% at $81.75 billion. The report restates earlier years, so its totals do not line up with the series in the chart above.
GameDev Reports, Dmitriy Byshonkov, on Sensor Tower (30 January 2026)
Other apps take in more money than games for the first time
Spending inside apps that are not games reaches $85.6 billion, passing games at $81.8 billion. Among the largest markets, only India and Pakistan still show growth in downloads.
2026
The first half of 2026: downloads down 12%, spending down 2%
Spending in mobile games totals $40 billion in the first half, down 2.0% from a year earlier, and downloads fall 11.9% to 24 billion. Time spent playing is flat. Spending on advertising for games rises 8% to $7 billion.
GameDev Reports, Dmitriy Byshonkov, on Sensor Tower (17 August 2026)
The strongest genre starts to slide
4X strategy games, the build-and-conquer kind such as Last War, had been growing in both downloads and spending. In the second quarter their downloads fall 12% and spending 10% from the quarter before. Last War's quarterly takings drop by about a third.
One mobile ad platform books about $20 billion of annual ad spend
AppLovin's annual platform ad spend rounds to about $20 billion in September 2026, up 60% on the year, according to chief executive Adam Foroughi. He puts the mobile casual audience at over a billion people a day and argues advertising has more room to grow than chatbots. The figure is the platform's throughput, not its revenue, and it is the company's own.
Consequences
012026
Advertising costs more and finds fewer players
Max Abrahamsen of Naavik points out that downloads fell 12% in the first half of 2026 even though spending on game advertising rose 8%. For 4X games, he estimates that about three quarters of the fall in revenue came from having fewer daily players, nearly all of it from failing to bring in new ones.
022026
The money now comes from old games
Newzoo's 2026 market report says mobile spending increasingly comes from established long-running games rather than from new players. It puts the cost of acquiring one install up 30%, at $0.56.
032026
Competition moves from finding players to keeping them
Jared Gibbons of Deconstructor of Fun writes that with downloads 'flat', in his word, and players' time already full, studios now compete on holding players and on what each one spends. 'The era of growth-at-all-costs is over,' he writes.
042025
Players who pay are asked to pay more
Sensor Tower's own report says growth is being driven more by increased spending per payer, and calls live operations, the running events and offers inside a game, a key requirement for long-term success. The growth, in other words, comes from the players who already pay.
Sensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025 (March 2025), page 5
Objections
Counterpoint2026
A wider count says mobile is still growing
Sensor Tower counts only what goes through Apple's and Google's stores. It leaves out advertising, other Android stores, which dominate in China, and payments made on a game's own website. Newzoo, which counts more widely, expects mobile game revenue to grow 6.8% in 2026, to $121.1 billion, more than half of all spending on games. Nobody publishes a worldwide total for the payments that bypass the stores.
Counterpoint2024
Sensor Tower's own figures change between reports
Sensor Tower put players' 2023 spending in mobile games at $107.3 billion in February 2024. Its later reports count only Apple's App Store and Google Play, and give $76.7 billion and then $78.6 billion for the same year. The chart uses one report's series for that reason, and any line drawn across several years is one edition's view.
Counterpoint2025
Fewer junk downloads is not the same as fewer players
Much of the fall is in the cheapest kind of game. 20 billion of 2024's downloads were hypercasual games, the tiny free kind paid for by ads, and Google removed nearly half the apps in its store over the same period. The spending comes mostly from a different kind of game.
Sensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025 (March 2025), page 5
Counterpoint2024
The starting point is a pandemic peak
2020 was the first pandemic year, when downloads jumped from 44.4 billion to 57.6 billion. Measured from 2019 instead, downloads in 2024 were about 11% higher and spending about 29% higher, by our arithmetic on Sensor Tower's figures. On that reading, much of the fall since 2020 is the pandemic jump unwinding, not a drop below the old level.
What to watch
2027
Sensor Tower's figures for 2026
January 2027, when Sensor Tower usually publishes its yearly report. After a first half down 2%, 2026 could bring the first yearly fall in spending since 2023.
2027
The Supreme Court and payments outside the app stores
Early 2027, when the US Supreme Court could hear Apple's appeal in its case against Epic Games. The outcome decides whether games in the US can keep sending players to pay on their own websites free of Apple's fee, money that store figures like these do not count.
Further reading
- DataState of Mobile 2026: 9 Key Trendsdeconstructoroffun.com
- AnalysisH1 2026: 4X Strategy's UA Reckoningnaavik.co
- DataH1 2026 genre analysis: strategy stumbles, RPGs fall, and puzzle revenue ramps uppocketgamer.biz
Where to follow it Sensor Tower State of Mobile (annual), Naavik, Deconstructor of Fun, PocketGamer.biz monthly charts, AppMagic
- Games companies are still cutting jobs
- Rich markets are losing players, and growth has moved elsewhere
- China's growth is going to Chinese-made games
- Publishers are retreating from live-service games
- Investors are pulling money out of studios
- AI data centers are taking the memory games hardware needs
- Game prices are stalling as hardware prices climb
- Games media is consolidating and shrinking