Mario Bautista
Here are last month’s top grossing mobile games based on in-app purchase earnings, according to Appmagic data.
These IAP estimates do not include ad revenue, web shop spend, Apple and Google’s 30% cut or revenue from China’s fragmented Android ecosystem.
There’s commentary on which way the biggest earners are trending, and other interesting tidbits from the top 20 and beyond below.
Honor of Kings appears to have reclaimed its semi-permanent crown atop these top grossing charts after being briefly supplanted by DNF Mobile’s spectacular launch. $140m represents a fairly typical month for Tencent’s MOBA, whose scale is so colossal that it can top these listings even after a $20m drop in month-on-month IAP earnings.
Royal Match has now posted over $120m in IAP earnings two months running, another notable levelling up fore Dream Games’ puzzler after regularly hitting $112-113m in the first half of the year.
Outside of DNF Mobile, arguably the biggest top grossing chart story of the year is LastWar’s continued rise. Helped by a new run of UA ads featuring Anthony Starr – AKA Homelander from The Boys – September’s IAP earnings of over $117m represent yet another best-ever month for the 4X strategy game.
With millions of kids returning to school, Roblox’s expected September comedown puts it on just over $101m for September, down from August’s all-time high of $114m.
Whiteout Survival is close behind with just over $101m, another record month of IAP earnings for Century Games, which has now added about $10m to the game’s IAP earnings for the last three months running.
Monopoly Go seems to be evening out after some wild peaks at the end of 2023 and early this year. It has now earned around the $100m mark for the last four months, and downloads are gently tapering off.
PUBG Mobile is similarly steady with a third consecutive month of IAP earnings in the $90m range. September was a typical month for Candy Crush Saga too, though it has dipped a little down to ~$85m after posting just over $90m in August.
We seem to be past DNF Mobile’s incredible launch peak now, with Tencent’s latest hit dropping six places month-on-month after hitting ~$120m in August. Last month’s estimated total of $75m puts DNF Mobile a good $10m ahead of Supercell’s Brawl Stars, which bounced back from a dip in August to post over $64m in September – its third highest monthly total ever.
September’s top grossing mobile games: 11-20
11. Honkai: Star Rail (Hoyoverse): $49.91m
12. Coin Master (Moon Active): $49.88m
13. Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle (Bandai Namco): $37m
14. Pokémon Go (Niantic): $36.3m
15. Gardenscapes (Playrix): $36.2m
16. Township (Playrix): $35.7m
17. Genshin Impact (Hoyoverse): $32.9m
18. Fishdom (Playrix): $30.1m
19. Love and Deepspace (Paper Games): $30m
20. TfT: Golden Spatula (Tencent): $29.9m
There’s a big drop from Brawl Stars’ $64m in tenth to places 11 and 12, with Honkai: Star Rail and Coin Master both just under $50m. Hoyoverse’s gacha RPG is up notably on July and August, when it raked in around $30m, while Moon Active’s top title dipped under $50m in monthly IAP earnings for the first time since January 2020.
Dokkan Battle saw another live ops-driven spike last month, while Pokémon Go, Gardenscapes and Township are all fairly steady, though the latter title was the only one to post a month-on-month IAP earnings rise.
As we’ve noted previously, Paper Games’ Love and Deepspace is quietly performing very well, and is up eight places this month with a best-ever total of just over $30m.
Outside the top 20, Hoyoverse’s latest launch Zenless Zone Zero completes its third month on the market with IAP earnings of $25m in September, but is tracking way lower than its two predecessors Genshin and Honkai.
AFK Journey (in 24th spot) saw a notable drop from nearly $45m in August to $25m in September, while Call of Duty: Mobile (31st) also suffered a month-on-month earnings drop from $34m in August to $21m last month.
It’s also worth mentioning slow burner Gossip Harbor in 36th spot, a merge game that’s been steadily growing practically every month since its launch in June 2022. September was a new high for the game from Chinese outfit Microfun with $18m in IAP earnings.
After posting big revenue in March – nearly $60m – Legend of Mushroom seems to be sloping off with a sixth consecutive month-on-month decline, hitting $16m in September. Meanwhile Supercell’s Squad Busters is down in 121st place with around $6.5m earned last month, down on August’s total of $7.8m.
