Mobile games download witnesses 39% surge during Covid-19 lockdown

• POKKT reported a 39% increase in global mobile game downloads in the month of March 2020.
• Increase in daily average session time to 45 mins from 30 mins.

With people staying indoors and practising social distancing, POKKT reported a 39% increase in global mobile game downloads in the month of March 2020. While industries like travel, hospitality, FMCG have seen a considerable dip in their performance, the mobile gaming industry has seen a major surge due to more indoor time on consumers’ hands.

POKKT Mobile Ads works with over 3,000 publishers across the globe, thereby managing in-app advertisements for top games, generating about 700mn monthly unique users coming to their platform. The ad-tech platform has registered that there has been 31% increase in ad requests globally thereby pushing the mobile gaming industry into a stronger growth curve.

Few highlights from the POKKT analysis on the mobile gaming space:

• While Feb 2019 registered 2.9 billion mobile game downloads, March 2020 saw over 4 billion downloads globally
• 22% increase in monthly game downloads whereas pre-COVID, the growth was only 5%
• Increase in daily average session time to 45 mins from 30 mins
• 5-7 times increase in daily number of sessions compared to 3 daily sessions
• Playing time has changed from 2-5PM to 2 to 6 PM + 8 to 10 PM

Comscore reported, “Devoid of sports, travel and any social activities, many have turned to online games. Between the weeks of Feb. 10-16, 2020 and March 16-22; 2020, visits to online gaming websites or apps increased by 24%. Engagement, as measured by time spent on gaming sites or apps, increased by 21% during the same time period.”