Niko Partners forecasts an excellent future for the three largest MENA markets; Sensor Tower shared Q4 2022 download results; DappRadar claims that 48% of blockchain transactions come from games.
This week:
- Newzoo: PC gaming hardware market insights
- DappRadar: Games are responsible for 48% of blockchain activity
- Niko Partners: Gaming Markets of UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt will reach $2.79B in 2026
- Sensor Tower: Mobile Market Downloads in Q4 2022 Report
- GSD & GfK: The UK game sales in January 2023 dropped; PS5 sales increased almost twice
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Newzoo: PC gaming hardware market insights
Newzoo surveyed US, UK, Germany, France, and Japan users from September 2022 to October 2022.
Buying a new gaming PC
- 39% of dedicated gamers (those who play once a week or more often on the PC) are planning to buy new hardware to play in the next 6 months. In 2021 there were 55% of such users.
- 40% of dedicated gamers do not have plans of updating their gaming hardware. In 2021 there were only 29% of them.
- Laptop gamers are the most interested segment in buying new gaming hardware. Less interested are those, who have built their gaming PC by themselves.
Upgrading the existing gaming PC
- 42% of dedicated gamers postponed the update of their gaming PC until better times. It’s connected with both a lack of hardware and price increases.
- 33% of dedicated gamers agreed on more budget gaming PC updates; 40% decided to overpay for the hardware they wanted.
- Players who are buying pre-built desktops are most inclined to overpay – 42% of gamers in this category did it.
DappRadar: Games are responsible for 48% of blockchain activity
- DappRadar is sharing information about UAW (unique active wallets), that perform transactions. In January 2023, 48% of all blockchain activities came from blockchain games. In December 2022 this number was 45%.
- However, this number shouldn’t mistake you. The overall number of UAW in blockchain games in January was 839k. That’s too far from the massive adoption.
- It’s also fair to mention that despite the growing share of UAW in games, it’s overall number decreased by 0.89% compared to December. The overall number of UAW dropped by 9.55%.
Niko Partners: Gaming Markets of UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt will reach $2.79B in 2026
Niko Partners call UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt the MENA-3 markets.
- The market intelligence agency valuated the size of those markets in 2022 at $1.8B. In 5 years their CAGR will be about 10%.
- The number of gamers in MENA-3 markets reached 67.4M in 2022. By 2026 this amount will increase to 87.3M with a 6% CAGR.
- Egypt is the country with the largest gaming population, and it’s also the fastest growing. Saudi Arabia is the leader in revenue, and UAE is the ARPU leader.
- 76% of gamers in Egypt, UAE, or Saudi Arabia are younger than 35 years. In Egypt, a significant amount of gamers are younger than 25.
- 73% of gamers in MENA-3 markets are interacting with eSports content.
Sensor Tower: Mobile Market Downloads in Q4 2022 Report
Overall numbers
- Apps downloads worldwide in Q4 2022 reached 35.5B. A decline from the previous year is 0.1%.
- Downloads in App Store increased by 2.4% YoY to 8.1B. Downloads in Google Play decreased by 0.9% YoY to 27.5B.
- Stumble Guys was the fastest-growing app by downloads in the world.
Downloads – games
- The number of downloads in games in the Q4 2022 in AppStore is 6.9% lower than in Q4 2021. Google Play is showing growth of 0.6%.
- Subway Surfers was downloaded 59M times in Q4 2022. It’s 29% lower than in the previous quarter.
- The World Cup helped FIFA Mobile to reach 44M downloads with a QoQ growth of 137%.
- Games from the App Store’s top 20 increased download results significantly compared to the previous quarter.
- Garena Free Fire received almost 45M downloads in Google Play in Q4 2022. It’s the most popular game on the platform despite a decrease in downloads by 15.8% QoQ.
Downloads – publishers
- 6 out of 10 companies in top 10 by downloads are game publishers. It’s Azur Interactive, Say Games, Embracer Group, Miniclip, Supersonic Studios, and Zego Studio.
Downloads – countries (all apps)
- India (7.1B), the US (3.2B), Brazil (2.5B), Indonesia (1.9B), and Russia (1.4B) are the top-5 countries in the world by downloads.
- The number of downloads in the US compared to Q4 2021 increased on both iOS (+0.3%) and Android (+2.4%).
GSD & GfK: The UK game sales in January 2023 dropped; PS5 sales increased almost twice
Games
- 2.24M games have been sold in the UK in January 2023. It’s 4.4% less than a year before.
- Analysts are connecting it with a lack of new releases. In January 2022 the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus happened.
- FIFA 23 was the leader in sales in the UK in January 2023. GTA V and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are next.
- Dead Space remake started from the 6th position on the chart.
Consoles
- More than 125k consoles have been sold in the UK in January.
- PlayStation 5 sales increased by 98% compared to the previous year. The main reason for such growth is that last year there was a significant problem with supply.
- 55% of sold PS5 consoles are bundled with God of War Ragnarok.
- Nintendo Switch is in second place by sales. And the tempo continues to decline.
