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Soomla: Top 20% of mobile users account for 80% of ad revenue

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

The top 20 percent of mobile users contribute at least 80 percent of the advertising revenue for mobile apps, according to a report by analytics and in-app purchase company Soomla.

Not only does the fabled 80-20 rule apply to people who spend money in apps, it also applies to those who view ads. That’s because some of the heaviest app and game users will view lots of ads to get the rewards that they want. These findings confirm the existence of “ad whales,” Soomla found.

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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.