US Loses Grip on $121 Billion Mobile Gaming Sector to China

Chinese mobile game publishers have overtaken American studios in a global industry forecast by Newzoo to hit $121.1 billion in 2026. According to Bloomberg, China commanded 40% of the global market for top mobile games by mid-2026, while the U.S. share fell to 16.5%. As recently as early 2024, the U.S. and China were virtually neck-and-neck in revenue share from the world's top 100 mobile games, per Sensor Tower data cited by Bloomberg. PocketGamer.biz reported that Chinese-published games accounted for roughly four of every 10 titles in the global top 100 by revenue when offshore Chinese-founded studios are included.

Bloomberg reported that Chinese studios now make games quicker, cheaper, and more profitably, leveraging extensive supply chains and a massive domestic audience of about 680 million gamers. By mid-2026, Chinese titles generated about $47 in quarterly revenue per active user in the U.S. market, nearly six times the $8 average for American games. Top grossing titles include Tencent's Honor of Kings and Century Games' Whiteout Survival, alongside LastWar. awnchina.cn's first-half 2026 tally put Honor of Kings' global App Store and Google Play in-app purchase revenue at $1 billion, with Whiteout Survival close behind at $723 million.

Yang Liu, co-founder of mobile game startup End Game Interactive, told Bloomberg that the U.S. is no longer the dominant force in global gaming. High U.S. operating costs have led Liu to build out his business in Latin America, where he now employs more than 40 people. Meanwhile, Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen stated in a blog post that Western developers have failed to bring radical new gameplay innovation to the market, noting that out of 22 games launched since 2020 that grossed at least $1 billion, only two were developed in the West.

Other regions are also making inroads in the U.S. market. According to Sensor Tower data cited by Bloomberg, publishers from Singapore and Turkey combined accounted for 18% of revenue from the top 100 games in the U.S. in the second quarter, up from 1.2% in the first quarter of 2020. At the same time, the share of top U.S. game revenue held by U.S. publishers has shrunk from 40% to less than 30%.