Google play store and Apple store earn their revenue from mobile applications which accounts for 71 percent from both platforms. It is no surprise that the majority of major grossing applications are games because other applications have adopted ways to stop subscription on platform.
According to recent examples, both Spotify and Netflix removed in-app subscriptions. Due to which, Google & Apple missed out on $1.8 billion.
Mobile games have the ability to allow in-app purchases which easily makes them the top grossing apps. Due to the nature of video games, it has become a multi-billion dollar business, in 2020, annual revenue was around $150 billion and the biggest contributor in the revenue was mobile gaming.
A lot of factors contribute to the boost in popularity of multiplayer mobile games like the in-app purchases & micro-transactions. With the passage of time, all types of mobile (gaming & non-gaming) continue to rake dollars up and increase hype.
Take a Look At The List Of The Top Grossing Apps Of All Time:
1. Honor Of Kings ($11 Billion+)
The game which dominates the mobile sector, Honor Of Kings, is a Chinese game made by Tencent. It has another variant called Arena of Valor which is modified to be a more suitable version for the international market. It is a MOBA genre game and players can try out different characters and game modes to enjoy the game. It became the highest grossing game app in 2020 with a worldwide gross of $2.45 billion. In 2021, it crossed 28.5 million downloads.
2. Monster Strike ($9.6 billion+)
A very strategic game with the inspirations from Pokémon. The thing which makes it unique is that it makes game battles more enjoyable by hurling monsters at enemies instead of the combat style.
This game was a big success in its homeland Japan but it wasn’t seen on an international level. An English version of the game was removed because of the lack of attention. It is still believed to be a very lucrative game. To this day, this game has crossed 50 million downloads.
3. Clash Of Clans($7.7 billion+)
There was a time when everybody used to play clash of clans with their friends. You can build castles and defend yourself from enemy attacks. It started making revenue of $1.8 billion annually and till this day, it can be found in the top 10 games on the play store. It surpassed the milestone of 500 million downloads.
4. PUBG Mobile ($6.2 billion+)
Player Unknown Battleground isn’t a new game but its popularity increased when PUBG mobile version was released. The game became popular so quickly and it was banned in many countries but still it had 800 million players worldwide. After Crossfire, it became the second most played game in the world. In 2021, it had 127 million downloads.
5. Roblox:
Roblox, a very fun and popular game allows a user to play games which are created by other users. It allows you to interact with people and make new friends. It was released in 2006 and since then it has been growing. Covid-19 also boosted the growth of this game. It has 164 million active users and remains on the #2 gaming app on the chart. According to the stats of October 2021, It made $45 million of revenue. It crossed 182 million downloads in 2021.
6. Candy Crush:
Since the debut of Candy Crush saga in November 2012, it has maintained a steady stream of revenue. It soon became popular worldwide. It generated $38 million revenue monthly and crossed 2 million downloads.
7. Garena Free Fire:
It is a multiplayer battle royale game that allows you to play with your friends. It has 150 million active users on the daily basis and was released in December 2017 and made a revenue of $17 million. It isn’t as popular as other games but still held its position when it comes to revenue. It also gained 1 million new downloads.
8. Netflix:
Netflix is an American streaming subscription (non-gaming) app and has 221 million subscribers in the world. It has been declared as top grossing app for several times in a row. According to the recent stats of 2021, Netflix annual gross profit was $12 billion
9. Spotify:
Spotify is an audio streaming app that was founded in 2006. It soon became the largest music services app with 433 million active users which includes 188 million users who were paying subscribers. According to the recent research data, Spotify grossed $4 billion for the month of June in 2022.
10. YouTube:
YouTube was released back in September 2016 and since then, it has been everyone’s favorite. It’s free and anyone can use it to earn money by producing quality content. In recent years, YouTube made gross of $80 million revenue and gained 13 million downloads.
11. Tinder:
Tinder was first released in 2012. It is a dating app which is ranked first among its relevant category. In recent years, it grossed a whopping $56 million and crossed over 2 million downloads.
12. Tik Tok:
Tik tok, a short form video app was launched in 2014. It became popular worldwide and grossed an impressive $30 million revenue and crossed 11 million downloads.
It can be seen that technology has a very bright future in the world. It is continuously evolving very rapidly. Mobile applications are the biggest examples of how far technology came and how long it has to go. Above mentioned list contains gaming and non-gaming apps that generated highest revenues and is updated to the recent stats of SensorTower but as the time passes the order of the apps may change. However, the applications mentioned are consistently ranked as the top grossing apps of all time.