Kiwi’s Guide to Mobile Gaming Stats in 2025
Last updated June 2026 – Free to share with link attribution.
Mobile gaming is no longer the “side hustle” of the games industry – it really is the industry, and here at DashTickets, we like a good deep dive, as you may well know! While we usually cover the online casino side of things, the gaming industry as a whole is simply too big to ignore, and here’s what it looks like in 2026 – with the numbers to back everything up!
Quick Facts
- Mobile gaming generated around US$103 billion in 2025 – about 55% of the entire games market around the world.
- There were 50.4 billion mobile game downloads in 2025 – which was still a 7.2% drop from 2024.
- Despite fewer downloads, players spent slightly more time than in 2024 on mobile games: a staggering 444 billion hours.
- Block Blast was the most downloaded game of 2025, with 356 million installations worldwide.
- Nearly 3 billion people now play games on a phone in some form.
Mobile Continues To “Own” The Industry
The games market around the world in 2025 reached around US$188.8 billion, and mobile took the biggest slice of the pie, pulling in roughly 55% of all that gaming revenue. Console-based gaming came in second place, with around 24% (US$45.9 billion), while PC came third, with 21% (US$39.9 billion)
To put this into context: mobile’s share has been continually increasing, up from 49% in 2024, and this means the phone is now the default gaming device for the majority of planet earth!
Downloads Down, Engagement Up
What really stuck on from the 2025 data was the fact that people are now downloading fewer games – but they’re playing the ones they actually do download more. Global downloads slipped 7.2% to 50.4 billion – but the total time spent playing, and the session numbers, both increased. Consumer spending increased too, hitting almost US$81.7 billion!
What that tells game developers is actually quite interesting: the “wow, a cool new game” fever is all-but over – and games now rely on actually being good and fun to play rather than just having good marketing.
What Kiwis (and Everyone Else) Are Playing
Puzzle games continue to be the most popular game category, and according to Sensor Tower, puzzle titles led downloads in every single country in 2025. For there not to be even one exception? Well, that’s pretty remarkable.
Puzzle games also became the top-grossing, too. Royal Match, Candy Crush Saga, Toon Blast, and Homescapes are all right at the top – and the most surprising data from last year was the fact that mahjong solitaire and tile-match games performed incredibly well, with downloads jumping 189% year-on-year!
Below, you can take a look at the most downloaded games of 2025:
| Rank | Game | Installs (2025) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Block Blast | 356 million |
| 2 | Roblox | 286 million |
| 3 | Free Fire / Free Fire Max | 100 million+ |
| 4 | Subway Surfers | 100 million+ |
| 5 | Pizza Ready | 100 million+ |
When it comes to revenue, however, it’s a different list – and Honour of Kings was the top-grossing game in the world, with around US$1.7 billion. There were also 14 different games that achieved 100 million or more downloads in 2025 – so, some pretty impressive figures all-round.
The Bottom Line
Mobile gaming continues to grow in popularity, with revenue climbing in nearly every country and game category. What’s really visible now, however, is that most growth now comes from actively keeping players engaged, rather than developers trying to just get fresh installs.
Puzzle-based games were the most popular in 2025, and the big franchises continue to capitalise on this by releasing new spin-offs to already-popular games. Mobile gaming is also now indisputably the most popular way to game worldwide – and it will be interesting to see how things continue to evolve over the coming months and years.
