Netmarble, NC, Gamevil, Kakao Rise as Top Mobile App Revenue Publishers

App Annie Reveals '2020 Top Publisher Awards'
Netmarble 6th, NCSoft 20th, Gamevil 39th, Kakao 48th

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Netmarble, NCSoft, Gamevil, and Kakao have emerged as top mobile application publishers worldwide in terms of revenue.

Mobile data analytics platform App Annie revealed on the 24th the '2020 Top Publisher Awards,' disclosing the 52 mobile app publishers that generated the highest revenue globally last year.

Among the global top 52 rankings, four Korean companies were included: Netmarble (6th), NCSoft (20th), Gamevil (39th), and Kakao (48th).

Seungwon Lee, CEO of Netmarble, stated, "New titles across various genres such as The Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, The King of Fighters Allstar, Kungya Catch Mind, and BTS World achieved positive results in the global market with differentiated gameplay. This year, we will focus even more on strengthening global competitiveness with various major titles including A3: Still Alive, Seven Knights Revolution, The Second Country: Cross Worlds, and Stone Age M (working title)."

In this ranking, the growth of publishers providing social networking and video streaming services, aside from games, was notable. IAC, the parent company of Tinder, which ranked first in consumer spending among non-game apps last year, rose two places from 2018 to 10th. Baidu, China’s largest search engine with the video streaming platform iQIYI (known as the Chinese Netflix) as an affiliate, ranked 18th. Netflix took 24th place.

Last year, global consumer spending on mobile games reached $86 billion, accounting for 72% of total consumer spending and driving revenue. Publishers occupying ranks 1 through 9 were all game companies, confirming that games remain the largest revenue source in the mobile market.

Looking at the top 10, China’s Tencent maintained its number one position for the fourth consecutive year, China’s NetEase held second place, and the U.S.’s Activision Blizzard remained third, the same as last year. Supercell, which achieved global success including in Korea with Brawl Stars last year, rose three places to fourth.

Japan’s Bandai Namco dropped one place to fifth, Ireland’s Playrix rose two places to seventh, and Japan’s Sony ranked eighth. Israel’s Playtika, the world’s largest social casino game company, entered the top 10 for the first time at ninth place.

Meanwhile, marking its eighth year, App Annie’s Top Publisher Awards annually announce the top 52 mobile app publishers worldwide and select publishers contributing to each country’s mobile app market by category based on objective criteria.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.