Here are last month’s top grossing mobile games worldwide, according to Appmagic data.
These numbers are estimates of developer earnings from IAP, and do not include ad revenue, web shop spend or Apple and Google’s 30% cut.
There’s commentary on which way the biggest earners are trending and other interesting tidbits from the top 20 and beyond below.
Tencent’s Honor of Kings is down by around $7m month-on-month but still easily clears its closest contender, Monopoly Go, by around $17m to be the top IAP earner in March.
That’s despite a month-on-month rise in IAP earnings for Scopely’s flagship game of around $12m to hit $116.7m, its second-biggest month after December’s spectacular total of over $122m.
A second straight month of ~$110m-ish IAP earnings suggests PUBG Mobile has been doing something right in the last couple of months, having dipped into the ~$80-85m bracket quite a bit during 2023.
Despite a big drop in month-on-month downloads, Royal Match’s IAP revenue is up a little on February’s total, meaning it keeps its fourth place spot for the second month running.
Honkai: Star Rail sees the biggest spike of the month, rising up four spots in the rankings with a huge ~$40m boost in month-on-month IAP earnings. A big 2.0 update arrived in February and a 2.1 update dropped in late March, so we assume it’s something to do with those.
(Incidentally: as if to prove the point that Hoyoverse’s games are eating into each other, Genshin Impact is down eight places and ~$16m in IAP revenue this month).
A slight uptick for Roblox this month to ~$73m can’t beat out Star Rail’s sudden rise, and it’s the same for Candy Crush Saga, up month-on-month in terms of IAP revenue but down one spot in the rankings.
LastWar: Survival Game has been getting some attention lately, and for good reason: it has broken into the top ten with a month-on-month rise in IAP earnings of ~$20m to hit over $66m in March. This one has huge momentum, so it’ll be fun to see where it lands next month if it continues to grow at this pace.
Another steady month for Moon Active’s Coin Master sees it rise one spot to ninth, and there’s another new ten top entrant in tenth, Joy Net Games’ Legend of Mushroom.
This one’s also been fully deconstructed recently, and is huge in South Korea; its March IAP revenue is over double what it was in February at over $54m, and it is earning good money from its ads on top. Take that ad cash into account and suddenly Legend of Mushroom is one of the lucrative new games in the mobile business; the top grossing chart, in general, is no longer as static as it once was, and that’s A Very Good Thing.
March’s top grossing mobile games worldwide: 11-20
11. Whiteout Survival (Century Games): $52.6m
12. Uma Musume Pretty Derby (Cygames): $48.5m
13. Brawl Stars (Supercell): $46.9m
14. Pokémon Go (Niantic): $44.1m
15. Gardenscapes (Playrix): $41.3m
16. Genshin Impact (Hoyoverse): $40.9m
17. Clash of Clans (Supercell): $32.7m
18. Monster Strike (Xflag): $30.9m
19. Township (Playrix): $30.5m
20. Homescapes (Playrix): $28.8m
The very Japanese phenomenon Uma Musume Pretty Derby is up a whopping 14 places this month, having nearly doubled its revenue month-on-month to ~$48m. This is not unusual, though: it has a spiky revenue profile in general.
The well-documented Brawl Stars comeback saw Supercell’s arena battler hit its highest-ever monthly IAP earnings in March, bigger than even January 2019’s post-launch peak. In short, a series of retooled monetisation features that started in late 2023 took the game from earning ~$6.7m in August 2023 to March 2024’s record $46.9m. The full details on how all that happened is explained by Supercell here.
Niantic’s Pokémon Go is down seven places and ~$13m in IAP earnings month-on-month. Interestingly, Niantic recently told Eurogamer that players have taken up its webshop “quite a bit”…how much will likely remain a mystery, of course.
We mentioned it above, but it’s worth elaborating on Genshin Impact‘s woes – March’s $40m in IAP earnings is its lowest ever monthly total, and a third straight month of decline.
Outside the top 20, China-only League of Legends games Golden Spatula and Wild Rift are down six and 16 places month-on-month respectively after spikes in February.
Eggy Party is also down 21 spots in March after a brief bump for its global launch, but doesn’t seem to have gained the traction Netease would have wanted in the west just yet.
