With 24 million downloads, Garena’s battle royale Free Fire was the most downloaded title across the App Store and Google Play for January 2022.
According to Sensor Tower, Free Fire downloads have increased 51.6 per cent year-over-year, highlighting the growing popularity of the game over the past year.
India was the country with the most instals across the period, representing 25.5 per cent of the total number, followed by Brazil in second place at 11.7 per cent. However, it is unlikely that Free Fire will repeat this feat for a consecutive month as Fire Fire: Illuminate and Free Fire Max were banned by the Indian government earlier this week, alongside 53 other apps and games linked to China.
This is not the first time the Indian government has banned mobile games linked to China, and Free Fire competitor PUBG Mobile was also previously banned. To curb the Indian government’s regulations, Krafton released an India-exclusive version of the game, Battlegrounds Mobile India, in August last year. Whether Garena will follow suit and release an India-exclusive Free Fire is yet to be known.
Still surfing
Coming close in second place was Subway Surfers with 23.7 million downloads, a rise of 58.6 per cent year-over-year. Subway Surfers is the most downloaded mobile game of all time, and the only mobile game or app to surpass three billion downloads.
Subway Surfers was most downloaded in India, which represented 20.7 per cent of overall downloads, followed by the US at seven per cent.
Roblox, Candy Crush Saga, and Race Master 3D rounded out the top five most downloaded titles for the month.
The global mobile games market accumulated 5.2 billion downloads, an increase of 2.8 per cent year-over-year. India generated the highest number of downloads with 761.8 million instals, representing 14.6 per cent of the global total. In second and third place were the US with 8.7 per cent, followed by Brazil at 8.2 per cent.
In terms of revenue, PUBG Mobile was the highest grossing mobile game across the App Store and Google Play for January 2022, with $237 million in consumer spending. Despite the increase in downloads, global consumer spending decreased seven per cent for the period.
