China leads in mobile game spending and downloads in 2023

Even despite the restrictions in place in the country, Chinese players continue to spend money and download smartphone games.

A new data.ai report shows a slight decline in the mobile gaming industry in 2023. Player spending last year amounted to $107.31 billion (2% less than in 2022), continuing the downward trend that began in 2021.

However, player spending grew by almost 7% compared to the 2020 figure of $100.53 billion.

China leads with $37.6 billion in spending. It is followed by the US ($24 billion), Japan ($12.78 billion), South Korea ($6.34 billion), and Germany ($2.6 billion).

In 2023, the country had the most downloads — 29.32 billion. This may indicate that the country’s efforts to limit gaming time for young players are not as effective as the government had hoped.

Globally, puzzle and simulation games were the most downloaded — 16.4 and 10.5 billion, respectively. Subway Surfers and Roblox were among the most downloaded games of the year.

In terms of genres, players spent the most on role-playing games such as Genshin Impact — $24.5 billion. Less than half of that amount was spent on strategy and casino games — $10.7 and $10.2 billion, respectively.

Evony accounted for the largest share of this spending — 10.1%. It is followed by Lineage M with 8.9%, and then Honkai: Star Rail with 8.7%.

The report notes that strategy and role-playing games are extremely successful for monetization.

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