India accounted for 15.29% of game downloads in H1 2023

According to a new report from Apptica, India remained the largest market for game downloads in the first half of 2023, with 4.32 billion game downloads, accounting for 15.29% of the total. This represents a 0.9% increase from the same period in 2022. 

Per the report, India was followed by Brazil with 2.99 billion downloads (10.59%) and the United States with 2.57 billion downloads (9.08%). With 1.3 billion downloads, or 4.59% of the total, China, which has long been the world’s largest mobile gaming industry, landed in sixth position.

According to a recent report, India is also expected to maintain its leadership in terms of downloads in 2027. 

India didn’t make the top 15 markets in terms of revenue although dominating in terms of game downloads. The US took first place with a market share of 26.61% and a total revenue of $5.71 billion, up from 22.61% in the same quarter of 2022. Japan came in second with $4.17 billion (19.43%), followed by China with $3.32 billion (15.05%).

When it comes to platforms, Google Play (88,6%) secures the majority of downloads, whereas the AppStore (56,3%) generates the majority of revenue. 

The report found that game downloads decreased across almost all genres in H1 2023 when compared to H1 2022. Casual rose to the top spot among the top-5 genres in terms of share (+0,62%) despite a decrease in total downloads from 4.24 billion to 4.14 billion. 

Casual also took the largest share in most of the countries, except for India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Argentina, Pakistan, Vietnam with Action, Australia with Puzzles (16%).

RPG, on the other hand, was ranked as the largest genre in terms of revenue. RPG has had a steady decline over the last two years, with revenue dropping from $5.9 billion in the first half of 2022 to $4.4 billion in the same period of 2023 (a decrease of 3,2% in market share). 

Per the report, total downloads of all apps across the App Store and Google Play for H1 2023 was 95.4 billion, with gaming covering 29.6% of total. Subway Surfers was the most downloaded app on Google Play in the first half of 2023 with 116.5 million game installs. 蛋仔派对 was the most downloaded app on the Apple’s App Store with 32.2 million downloads. 

Total revenue of all apps for the first six months of 2023 was $42 billion, with gaming accounting for 51% of that figure. Coin Master was the top grossing app on Google Play with $228 million in revenue, while 王者荣耀 took first place on the App Store with $766 million.