App Annie’s data tools peer deep into Asia’s mobile gaming trends

Mobile app data sleuth App Annie turned some of its voodoo toward mobile gaming trends at this year’s Casual Connect conference in Singapore. The company’s treasure trove of data and numbers on mobile apps from all over the world is an invaluable tool for companies to keep track of their market and users. It also makes for some pretty cool charts and top 10 lists.

We hear all the time mobile gaming is on the rise, and App Annie has the numbers to prove it. Gaming revenue on iOS continues to climb, according to the company’s data, having grown over 30 percent from Q4 2013 to Q4 2014. What’s interesting here is Google Play’s growth in that space; 75 percent over the same period. There seems to be a lot more Android gamers out there lately.

Not that Apple has much reason to worry. Even if it cares little about games on its platform, they are actually driving the App Store market, making it the leader in March 2015. It earned 30 percent more in revenue than Google Play. Google’s store is currently playing catch up, but it’s moving along nicely with its game revenue having grown over 40 percent in the past year.

Asia is loving its mobile games

App Annie’s data shows that Asia is a big part of that growth. According to the numbers, game revenue in March 2015 was driven primarily by Japan, the US, China, and South Korea. The iPhone’s surging popularity in China obviously contributed to those numbers. On the other hand, Google Play’s numbers are deflated there because it is technically not available in the country.

Interestingly, for the same month, Thailand is sitting comfortably in the world’s top 10 of countries by game downloads, both on the iOS and Google Play platforms. This makes it one of the fast emerging markets in this space. According to the data, Thailand and Malaysia, along with Indonesia, also contribute to driving game revenue for Google Play.

App Annie can further track how these markets change from year to year, the company’s VP for APAC, Junde Yu, tells Tech in Asia. For example, Korea and Singapore aren’t growing as much anymore, which shows they are getting saturated as far as downloads and revenue in mobile gaming are concerned. On the other hand, countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and India, are showing continuous growth in this sector.

This is how the top 10 game publishers appear on App Annie. (Image depicting stats from April 2015)

App Annie can break down its data into a country-by-country game downloads and game revenues comparison. In addition, it can keep track of individual publishers worldwide or by country. The same goes for titles, down to the most popular and most lucrative genres. For example, for March 2015, downloads in the App Store were dominated by action and arcade games, while at Google Play, casual and arcade games ruled. Action games were the most lucrative in the App Store and RPG and strategy games were the biggest earners at Google’s marketplace. “We have this kind of data for every country, every category, every app, every publisher,” says Yu.

The company can see, for example, that the Candy Crush games top the downloads lists, while Finnish juggernaut Clash of Clans brings in the most cash. But while hit publishers like King, Gameloft, and EA maintain a steady presence in the rankings, the data shows that Asian games and publishers are finding their own audience in the region.

Games from Asia like Kung Fu House and Summoners War seem to be earning a pretty penny in markets like Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, while Chinese publishers like Doodle Mobile and Kunlun Games took five spots on the game publishers’ top 10 chart. It’s also worth noting that messaging app LINE appears in the chart as a games publisher, with its game Everybody’s Marble (Let’s Get Rich) bringing in the most revenue after the almighty Clash of Clans in Southeast Asia.

Data as a service

Having recently debuted its usage intelligence feature, as well as demographics and cross-app usage features, App Annie now stands to dig even deeper into its data for insights and information. The usage intelligence feature provides a look at an app’s active user numbers, giving a more detailed (and arguably more accurate) look at an app’s performance than simple download numbers. During Casual Connect, the company demonstrated this by showing a top 10 list for most used mobile games in Singapore during Q1 2015 across iOS and Android. Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga were, unsurprisingly, sitting pretty at the top of each list.