Mobile game transaction in Korea hit record high of $1.5 bn in Q1

“Cookie Run: Kingdom”

In-app purchase volume of mobile games reached its highest quarterly figure in the first three months of the year in South Korea.

According to mobile app tracker IGAWorks on Wednesday, the transaction volume of mobile game apps reached 1.66 trillion won ($1.5 billion) in the first quarter.

Google Play took 78.6 percent of the transaction, followed by ONE Store with 14.2 percent and Apple’s App Store 7.2 percent.

The data is based on artificial intelligence (AI) analysis on 40 million mobile devices per day from January 1 to April 6, according to the company.

Devsisters’ “Cookie Run: Kingdom” had the most number of monthly active users at 3.06 million in March. More than half or 57.4 percent of the users are female, with women in their 20s accounting for 27.7 percent.

It was followed by battle royale game “Brawl Stars” that had 2.03 million monthly active users last month, “Kart Rider Rush+” with 1.98 million, “Roblox” 1.6 million and “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” 1.54 million.

The top grossing mobile game was NCSoft’s “Lineage M” that raked in 70.3 billion won in sales. Its sequel “Lineage 2M” ranked second at 55.5 billion won, followed by “Cookie Run: Kingdom” at 20.02 billion won, “Miracle Sword” 19.9 billion won and “Gran Saga” 16.2 billion won.

Nintendo’s “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp” that become the most popular app on Google Play and App Store right after its launch in early this month has maintained 420,000 daily users, according to the data.

[ㄏ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]