Mobile game sales in S. Korea surpass 4.2 tln won in 2019

SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Yonhap) -- Sales of South Korea's mobile game market rose 5.2 percent on-year to surpass 4.2 trillion won (US$3.6 billion) last year, industry data showed Thursday.

According to the data by mobile big data platform IGAWorks, combined sales at three app markets -- Google's Play Store for Android devices, Apple's App Store for iPhones, and ONE store -- came to 4.29 trillion won in 2019.

Google Play brought in 3.37 trillion won in sales in 2019 to account for 78.6 percent, followed by One Store, a home-grown integrated app store, and App Store, the data showed.

On a monthly basis, sales rose sharply in November when NCSOFT Corp. launched "Lineage 2M," a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), IGAWorks said.

NCSOFT had the biggest market share with 21.5 percent, followed by Netmarble Corp. with 11.7 percent and Nexon Co. with 5.1 percent, the data showed.

Users played mobile games 29.3 hours per month on average, with those in their 30s playing the most (44.1 hours), the data showed.

khj@yna.co.kr
(END)