New Report Highlights the Monetization Value of Repeat Mobile Game Users

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

In its Q1 2016 Mobile Gaming Insights research SOOMLA is reporting that game users who completed an in-app purchase in one game are six times more likely to pay in another game, compared to users who haven’t made a purchase. Also those users who paid $25 or more in one game are 40% more likely to pay in a second game.

The research is derived from game play from over 20 million players from more than 200 countries. The findings emphasize the monetization value of the contribution of cross-game purchase data to the ability to predict paying users as well the value of knowing a user’s in-app purchase history by genres played, dollars spent and virtual items bought.

Other report findings include:

- Quick payers (first in-app purchase within 24 hours of install) are nine times more likely to pay in another game.

- Developers who leverage holiday incentives achieve an average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) lift in December of 83% above the annual average.

- For each in-game item users purchase with real currency, an average of 18 additional items are purchased with virtual currency.

- 65% of all app revenue comes from “lifetime” goods such as characters, level packs, remove ads which cost $2.60 USD on average.

- “Single use” goods such as "save me", ammo, 30-second boost, etc. account for 71% of all in-game purchases.

- Daily active users increase as much as 33% over weekends, and this occurs primarily on phones, although sessions on tablets are often longer.

- Usage patterns differ across game genres with strategy games seeing the highest average session duration of 11 minutes - 2.6 times more than other genres.

- 13% of payers in a given game will also pay in another game.

- 33% of all users play only one session before churning.

- Only 6% of all users will play more than 20 sessions.

- Strategy Games are the most engaging with an average session duration of 11 minutes (2.6 times more than other genres).