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Mobile gamers have spent nearly $45bn in 2021 so far

That accounts for almost 70% of all month generated by apps in the first six months of the year

Global consumers spending on mobile games reached $44.7 billion in the first half of 2021.

That's according to Sensor Tower estimates shared with GamesIndustry.biz and marks a 17.9% increase when compared to the first six months of 2020.

Apple's App Store accounted for more than half of this at $26 billion, up 13.5% year-on-year, while games spending on Google Play rose 24.7% to $18.7 billion.

The highest grossing games for H1 2021 were Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Genshim Impact, Roblox and Coin Master respectively. PUBG Mobile revenues include those of Game For Peace, the iOS version released specifically for China.

Overall consumer spending across both Apple and Google's stores reached $64.9 billion, meaning games accounted for 68.9% of all dollars spent. Total spending was 24.8% higher than the $52 billion recorded in H1 2020.

Again, iOS spending was higher with the App Store taking $41.5 billion, up 22.1% year-on-year. Google Play spending, meanwhile, rose 30% to $23.4 billion.

Downloads actually dipped slightly at 28.1 billion, down 1.4% when compared to last year. This is due to the 22.8% decline seen on the App Store, with total downloads coming in at 4.4 billion. Google Play downloads grew 3.9% to 23.7 billion.

The most downloaded games were Join Clash 3D, Garena Free Fire, High Heels, Bridge Race and Among US respectively.

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James Batchelor avatar
James Batchelor: James is Editor-in-Chief at GamesIndustry.biz, and has been a B2B journalist since 2006. He is author of The Best Non-Violent Video Games
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