According to Gamma Data, the global mobile game market grew by 4.93% year-on-year in 2025, reaching a total value of RMB 666.895 billion, with an increase exceeding RMB 30 billion. The competitiveness of Chinese mobile games in the global market continues to strengthen, with their revenue share rising from 34.04% in 2021 to 38.55% in 2025, showing a consistent upward trend. As globalization becomes a core strategic direction for Chinese game companies, the overseas revenue share of self-developed Chinese mobile games in foreign markets increased from 23.76% in 2021 to 32.21% in 2025, maintaining growth over the five-year period. This reflects the relatively stable competitive advantages Chinese game companies have established in their global expansion.
The global mobile game market expanded by over RMB 30 billion in 2025, with the total market size reaching RMB 666.895 billion, a year-on-year growth of 4.93%. Market growth has stabilized at nearly 5% for two consecutive years, indicating a general slowdown. It is important to note that the global mobile game market has already reached a high level, and despite the slowdown, the absolute increase of over RMB 30 billion remains substantial. Future market growth may rely more on the exploration of emerging markets and new opportunities created by technological advancements and enhanced user experiences.
The structure of leading mobile game genres in overseas markets remained stable in 2025. Strategy games, including SLG, continued to perform strongly, with the highest number of top titles and the largest revenue share among all genres, demonstrating outstanding monetization efficiency per title. Casino-style games accounted for 12.50% of the top titles but contributed only 9.48% to total revenue, indicating lower monetization efficiency relative to their presence. This genre is also significantly influenced by regional regulatory policies, and Chinese game companies have limited involvement. Match-3 games contributed 17.27% of revenue, significantly higher than their 11.00% share of titles, highlighting the strong revenue generation capability of leading products in this category. Additionally, casual, card, and MMORPG games also held notable market shares.
The top rankings have become highly entrenched, making it increasingly difficult for new titles to break through. Between 2020 and 2025, the proportion of new games in the overseas market's top 200 by revenue remained consistently low, around 5%, with a slight increase to 6.0% in 2025. Over the six-year period, established titles continued to dominate the top charts, reflecting a highly solidified market structure where new entries face growing challenges. For companies expanding overseas, the path to quickly entering the top tier with new releases is becoming more restricted. The core focus is gradually shifting towards enhancing long-term operational capabilities to effectively extend the lifecycle of mature products. However, market consolidation does not entirely eliminate opportunities for new games; precise market positioning and differentiated product strengths can still create openings for breakthroughs.
Competition among existing titles is intense, with over half of the top 200 mobile games by revenue in overseas markets experiencing a decline or significant drop in their rankings year-on-year in 2025, indicating substantially increased market pressure. The marginal benefits of long-term operations for mature products are gradually decreasing, while user thresholds for freshness in content updates continue to rise. Relying solely on event updates and version maintenance to retain users has become less effective, and the differentiated advantages built through refined operations are increasingly difficult to sustain. Concurrently, player preferences are evolving rapidly, competition within sub-genres is intensifying, and market fragmentation is growing. In this environment, leading products that fail to adapt promptly to market changes, innovate in gameplay, or integrate genres are more likely to face persistent ranking declines.
Regional developments in the global mobile game market vary significantly. In the United States, the market reached RMB 154.91 billion in 2025, with a growth rate of 2.2%, a notable slowdown compared to previous years. The product structure is highly solidified, with leading titles often having lifecycles exceeding seven years, continuously dominating revenue. This results in high user acquisition and retention costs for new games, limiting overall market growth potential. Genres like casino, strategy, match-3, and casual games are highly mature in the U.S., with strong user loyalty, collectively accounting for over 60% of revenue from the top 200 mobile games. Homogenization in gameplay is prominent, and the product structure is rigid. While the light casual segment shows some resilience, competition is saturated, lacking breakthrough new titles. Market growth primarily depends on deepening engagement with existing products, making significant acceleration difficult.
Japan's mobile game market experienced a contraction for the third consecutive year, declining by 5.1% to RMB 68.14 billion in 2025. The genre distribution among Japan's top 200 mobile games reveals distinct local preferences, with a significantly higher proportion of card-based games compared to other regions. The market includes long-standing titles operating for over a decade, reflecting Japanese players' strong loyalty to established IPs. However, high-quality new games still have opportunities to break through, underscoring the importance Japanese players place on product style and content quality. This highly engaged user base has, to some extent, mitigated the impact of yen depreciation, providing resilience amid overall market contraction.
South Korea's mobile game market reached approximately RMB 31.18 billion in 2025, growing 6.6% year-on-year, or 11.0% in local currency terms, demonstrating considerable momentum for a mature market. The product structure in South Korea is characterized by a significantly shorter average lifecycle for top-grossing games compared to the overall overseas market. The proportion of new titles remains high, consistently around 20%, indicating a fast iteration cycle. Furthermore, the remastered development of local major IPs, such as "Seven Knights: Re:Birth" and "Mabinogi Mobile," has become a key growth driver. Overall, South Korea's market is expanding steadily, with ongoing optimization of its internal structure, diversified growth drivers, and intense competition, combining depth and openness.
Europe's overall mobile game market grew to RMB 76.1 billion in 2025, a 9.8% increase year-on-year, or 4.8% in euro terms, continuing its growth trajectory. However, the primary growth was supported by long-operating products, with relatively limited contributions from new releases. European user preferences lean towards match-3, strategy, casino, and casual genres. Match-3 and casual games can update content relatively easily to meet user demands, while casino games often require minimal content updates. Strategy game players consume content slowly. These genre preferences contribute to the difficulty new titles face in breaking into the market.
The Middle East mobile game market reached RMB 16.99 billion in 2025, growing 5.8% year-on-year, but the growth rate has noticeably slowed. In terms of leading genres, strategy games hold a dominant position, accounting for over 20% of top titles and nearly 30% of revenue. A distinct characteristic compared to other overseas markets is the prominence of board and card games as the second most popular category, followed by shooting games, which also maintain strong revenue performance. It is important to note that geopolitical factors may impact regional economic development and users' willingness to spend on games in the Middle East.
Latin America's mobile game market continued its high-growth trend in 2025, expanding 9.6% year-on-year to RMB 27.2 billion. As a key emerging market, it has sustained rapid growth for several years, supported by continuous expansion of its user base, making it one of the regions with the most significant growth potential globally. The genre mix among Latin America's top 200 mobile games is relatively diverse, with strategy, match-3, and casual games forming the core in terms of title count. Regarding revenue, shooting games and competitive gameplay genres are particularly prominent, reflecting a clear preference among local players for highly interactive and competitive products.