Nine Years Later, Candy Crush is Still Growing!

Ariel Ariel
10/29/21

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps #85 - It's Still a Money Game. Check out the full article for more insights.


We just published our monthly report of the most downloaded games in September, which you can read here. There were a few interesting trends there (downloads went down by 23% month over month), it's Candy Crush that stole the show.

While the revenue of the top 10 games in the U.S. declined by about 14% in September, Candy Crush managed to not just keep its number stable but also grow its net revenue by a massive 27%.

In a few weeks, Candy Crush will turn 9, so this is a great trend for King to be seeing. It's easy to dismiss the title's growth by suggesting it's all about ads because while that's partially true, it's naive to think anyone can throw money on ads and turn that spend into revenue.

That's why the top of our monthly report sees very little change at the top positions.

Check out the complete report for the full rundown of download and revenue trends in September.

What you need to know: Candy Crush was the highest earning game in the U.S. in September. It earned $42M in net revenue across the App store and Google Play and leaped over Roblox. Month over month, its revenue grew 27% while other top apps declined by roughly 14%.

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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


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