Growth in the mobile games market continued to slow down in 2025, according to the AppMagic Mobile Market Report 2026. The market is entering a more mature and competitive phase. Nevertheless, revenue from direct-to-consumer (D2C) and alternative payment systems increased by 26% year-on-year.
AppMagic has published the Mobile Market Landscape 2026, in which the market researchers analyse and consider key trends in apps and games. The report is based on AppMagic data for 2023–2025. It covers the App Store and Google Play markets only, not other app distribution sources. D2C revenue and payment metrics are calculated based on AppMagic's internal analytics and include data for the United States only.
The share of games in total app releases on mobile increased from 63% in 2024 to 72% in 2025. However, apps overtook games for the first time ever in terms of IAP revenue: In September 2025, apps surpassed games, generating $4.8 billion versus $4.5 billion. The most significant contributors to absolute revenue growth among apps were: ChatGPT (+513% yoy) TikTok (+28%), YouTube (+36%), Tinder (+10%) and HBO Max (+17%).
In 2025, mobile gaming growth continued to lose momentum, signalling that the market had entered a more mature and competitive phase. Both revenue growth (+0.2% YoY vs. +3% last year) and download growth (+4.6% YoY vs. +6.6% last year) slowed down. This reflects rising market saturation and the depletion of earlier growth drivers, particularly in regions that had fuelled expansion in previous years. Growth is largely stagnating across the top 10 mobile gaming markets. Declines in markets such as Brazil are being offset by gains in Indonesia, while the United States and India are remaining broadly stable. Revenue trends mirror this pattern. Moderate growth in Western markets such as the UK, Germany and France is offset by declines in key Asian markets, including South Korea. Appmagic: "Together, these trends point to a maturing gaming market where competition is intensifying around a relatively fixed base of users and spending, rather than broad-based market expansion. " Overall, the data indicates that growth in the gaming market is increasingly driven by execution, engagement depth, monetisation, and LiveOps practices.
The following is highlighted for genres: The strategy niche experienced the fastest growth in both revenue (+16%) and downloads (+15%). Despite a 15.8% increase in downloads, casino games revenue fell by 7.6% YoY, pointing to deteriorating monetisation efficiency. RPGs experienced an even sharper downturn, with revenue falling by 16.6% and downloads declining by 9.1%.
"After strong downloads growth in previous years, LATAM is now facing market saturation: Downloads growth has largely stalled across most countries: Columbia (-10%), Ecuador (-9.8%), Peru (-8.9%), Argentina (-8.4%), while revenue is growing rapidly: Argentina (+33.2%), Columbia (+23.6%), etc." - AppMagic
Games are also adopting direct-to-consumer (D2C) monetisation. While growth in direct in-app purchases (IAPs) slowed, revenue from D2C and alternative payment systems grew by 26% year on year (YoY) across games in the US. Although D2C revenue is still not universal, it is driven mainly by top-grossing titles and signals a gradual shift towards alternative monetisation channels. The top 100 titles increased their D2C earnings by 38%.
