According to Sensor Tower, European consumer expenditure on mobile games reached $11.2 billion in 2021, a 16.7% rise over the previous year, out of a total of $18.3 billion spent on mobile applications and games in Europe.
Overall, mobile game spending accounted for around 61% of overall mobile app revenue in Europe. This represents 12.7% of the global mobile games market.
Unlike the rest of the globe, Google Play earned more user spending in Europe than the App Store. Player expenditure on Google Play hit $6.4 billion in 2021, an increase of 18.5% year on year.
In comparison, user purchasing on the App Store generated $4.8 billion, a 14.3% rise year on year.
Google Play accounted for 57.5% of total mobile game revenue in Europe, while the App Store accounted for 42.5%. You can read the entire study here.
Most Popular Games
PUBG Mobile from Tencent was the highest-grossing mobile game during the period, generating $404.2 million in European consumer expenditure, a 58.3% increase year on year. Coin Master from Moon Active came in second with $392 million, followed by Roblox with $264 million.
Furthermore, PUBG Mobile was the fastest-growing title in Europe’s top ten grossing games for 2021, followed by FunPlus’s State of Survival, which increased by 51.4% year on year. Roblox came in the third position, with a 29.4% increase in European revenue year over year.
According to Newzoo, mobile games will account for more than half of total consumer spending in the games industry by 2021, totalling over $93 billion.
Online Casino Games not included
Online gambling is not included in this study, even though most players are using their mobile phones to play. This is because you can’t deposit in online casino Europe, like those found here https://casinotop3.com/eu-casinos/, through App Store or Google Play. Instead, users need to use a separate payment method to make their deposits.
However, looking at the study from EGBA (European Gaming & Betting Association) online gambling reached €36.4 billion in revenue during 2021. With 50.5% of players using their mobile phones to gamble, we can roughly calculate that €18.3 billion was gambled on mobile.
Online gambling is becoming more popular, and more regulated markets are opening up. In 2021, Europe’s online gambling market was expected to achieve 82.7% onshore market channelling. This means that more than four-fifths of Europe’s online gambling revenue occurs on gambling websites or apps licensed and regulated in the country where the gambling activity occurred. 17.3% were expected to take place in the offshore market. The introduction of the regulated online gambling market in The Netherlands, according to EGBA, is the most important driver of the predicted gains in Europe’s onshore market flow in 2021.
Mobile gambling is the new future
Online gaming is becoming more mobile. In 2021, the percentage of online bets from mobile devices (phones and tablets) was predicted to surpass that of desktop computers for the first time in Europe, with 50.5% of online bets expected from mobile devices and 49.5% expected from desktop computers. A general movement toward mobile betting is foreseen, with mobile betting accounting for 61.5% of all online bets by 2026.
Betting, especially on sports, is the most popular online gambling activity among Europeans, with a €14.64 billion market value and accounting for 40% of Europe’s online gross gaming revenue in 2021. Horse racing betting is predicted to be worth €4.88 billion (13% of total) online gross gaming revenue, while online betting on sports like football and other sorts of online betting, including event betting, is expected to be worth €9.76 billion (27% of total) online gross gaming revenue.