2022 was a tumultuous year for the market, but new data shows just five games grossed more than $7.2 billion, Sportslens reports.
Honor of Kings comes right at the top and is identified as the best performer of the year, earning more than $2.2 billion during the year. It was followed by PUBG Mobile ($1.7 billion), Genshin Impact ($1.56 billion), and Candy Crush Saga ($1.02 billion). Roblox, which grossed $861.8 million, is the only title in the top 5 not to cross the billion-dollar mark.
This suggests that 2022 was a record year for Tencent, which released both Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile, which earned more than the other three titles combined. However, each game saw a different year in terms of growth. While Honor of Kings saw a roughly 25 percent year-on-year increase in revenue compared to $1.76 billion in 2021, PUBG Mobile saw revenue decline from over $2 billion in 2021 to $1.72 billion dollars in 2022.
Additionally, Genshin Impact and Candy Crush Saga both saw growth in 2022, while Roblox saw sales fall nearly $100 million to $862 million.
Overall, revenue for the five top-grossing games was roughly $400 million higher than in 2021, once again demonstrating the remarkable resilience of the mobile games market.
A drop in player numbers
A survey by Statista and Mobilegamer found that the number of mobile gamers fell by 5.7 percent in 2022, for a total decrease of around 104 million people. However, the company forecasts a significant upswing, with the number of mobile gamers expected to increase by 165 million in 2023, bringing the total number of gamers worldwide to 1.86 billion. China alone is expected to have more than 546 million players by the end of the year, while the US is expected to surpass 157 million.
Furthermore, the group predicts that this growth will continue in the coming years and that the number of mobile gamers worldwide will surpass 2 billion by 2025.
We’ve listed Tencent and Roblox as two of the top 50 mobile game makers of 2022.