{"id":956806,"date":"2026-11-03T13:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956806\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T13:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:50:15","slug":"appmagic-non-gaming-apps-have-beaten-mobile-games-in-iap-revenue-since-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956806\/","title":{"rendered":"AppMagic: Non-gaming apps have beaten mobile games in IAP revenue since 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mobile games last led in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in 2016, having since been outperformed by non-gaming platforms such as TikTok and AI chatbots.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/appmagic.rocks\/anniversary\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new AppMagic report<\/a> analysing data from the past decade to mark its 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n<p>TiMi Studio Group&#8217;s Honor of Kings and Garena&#8217;s Free Fire led mobile gaming charts from 2016 to 2026.<\/p>\n<p>However, ChatGPT was the most downloaded app globally in 2025, and TikTok has been the top-grossing app each year since 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Honor of Kings has led IAP revenue since its 2017 debut, earning $830 million that year and surpassing $1.1 billion in 2026. The MOBA ranked first in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Free Fire dominated the downloads chart, debuting in 2019 with 272 million installs. It added 225 million downloads in 2021, 269 million in 2024, and 221 million in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>AppMagic noted that Free Fire generated no revenue at launch but has since earned $3.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The report also highlighted contrasts, such as Among Us achieving 930 million downloads but generating only $52 million, while Umamusume earned $1.6 billion from 19 million downloads.<\/p>\n<p>There are only a handful of top-grossing games that continue to grow in revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Micro Fun&#8217;s Gossip Harbor: Merge &amp; Story saw revenue increase 95% year-on-year from January to October this year, alongside Century Games&#8217; Kingshot (126%) and Honor of Kings (5%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mobile games last led in-app purchase (IAP) revenue in 2016, having since been outperformed by non-gaming platforms such&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,190,61],"class_list":["post-956806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}