Candy Crush Saga is five years old on mobile.
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Candy Crush Saga: 2.73 billion downloads in five years and still counting

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 9 min

Candy Crush Saga is the most popular mobile game in the U.S. after a dramatic comeback in the third quarter. As the mobile game crossed its fifth anniversary this week, its tally has crossed 2.73 billion sugary downloads.

In the third quarter that ended September 30, the match-3 game generated more than $250 million in revenue, up 97 percent from the same period a year ago, according to measurement firm Sensor Tower. More than 1 trillion game rounds have been played in the game since its launch, and 350 trillion candies have been swiped to date. At this rate, the $5.9 billion that Activision Blizzard paid to acquire King in 2015 looks like a deal.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.