data.ai, the leading mobile data analytics provider, announces the annual Top Publisher Award winners, which recognizes the most successful mobile companies around the world.
In 2022, time spent on mobile increased to 5 hours per day, of which entertainment accounted for 70%. Short-Form Video apps, led by TikTok, dominated consumer share of wallet. To maximize monetization within their apps, the top publishers in 2022 adopted hybrid strategies through a combination of one-time purchases and recurring subscriptions. In 2022, 42 of the top 50 publishers found monetization success predominately through in-app purchases and we expect this trend to continue. This is in comparison to 8 out of the top 50 publishers which predominantly used a subscription strategy to monetize their suite of apps.
Tencent (#1) topped the charts for the sixth consecutive year, while ByteDance jumped five places to #2. This was driven by the popularity of TikTok, which dominated consumer attention in 2022 and drove $3.3 billion in record consumer spend.
Publishers such as Match Group (#6), Disney (#8), Bumble (#39), and Kakao piccoma Corp (#37) all saw growth as their apps kept consumers entertained. While market level spend on gaming was down in 2022, there were some notable successes at the publisher level. TakeTwo Interactive (#15), which acquired Zynga in May 2022, moved up an impressive 49 places largely driven by the success of Zynga’s hit titles such as Empires & Puzzles and Zynga Poker. Other gaming publishers that saw double-digit jumps include Dream Games (#42) and Top Games (#46), which saw success with games Royal Match and Evony, respectively.
Publishers headquartered in Asia Pacific dominated the list, making up more than half (27) of the top 50. However, the United States had the largest number of top publishers for a single country with 17, followed by China with 12.
“We congratulate the elite Top Publishers across the globe. It is our privilege to work with these mobile leaders and play a part in their world-class performance and we are honored to be trusted by 44 of the top 50 publishers.” says Ron Thomas, Chief Revenue Officer of data.ai.
See the other award winners for a variety of categories and regions here: Top Publisher Awards 2023.
Methodology
The list is composed of the Top 50 mobile publishers by combined iOS and Google Play revenue estimates from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022. These rankings do not include revenue earned from in-app advertising, commerce or payments outside of the app stores.
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