Sensor Tower recently released its 2026 State of Mobile report, which covers the trends and stories that 2025 revealed about the mobile markets. One of the report’s findings showed that users spend more on apps than they did on games for the first time in at least five years. This is likely due to a huge increase in spending on things like generative AI and entertainment.
The report covers multiple yearly trends for games, including revenue, downloads and hours spent. It noted that total number of downloads dropped precipitously year-over-year, with hours spent varied by region. Revenue went up by 1%, though mostly thanks to growth in markets such as Europe, rather than an overall upward trajectory.
Other insights from the report show that strategy games show the biggest revenue growth across multiple markets, as well as a consistent increase in downloads. The report attributes this to the success of 4X games like Whiteout Survival, with its publisher Century Games also showing “outsized growth” and peaking at the #2 spot in the in-app purchase revenue leaderboard.
Games vs apps
As the report noted, consumers spent more on apps than games in 2025, with in-app revenue for each having finished the year at $85.6 billion and $81.8 billion, respectively. This is thanks in part to a 21% YoY spike in IAP for apps.
According to Sensor Tower, generative AI primarily led the growth, with short drama also contributing. Their triple-digit YoY growth offset a decline in downloads in other subgenres. The report notes that almost all app genres showed positive growth in 2025, “underscoring the broad-based strength of app monetization beyond games.”
Jonathan Briskman, Sensor Tower’s director of market insights, told GamesBeat, “For the first decade of the mobile app stores, games set the standard for mobile monetization through advanced free-to-play IAP models. Now apps have caught up with the rise of subscriptions and more sophisticated purchase strategies, many borrowed from games. The next shift may see game developers taking cues from breakout app genres like short drama to evolve how they scale and monetize globally.”