We recently made public our annual traffic analysis, in which we shared a list of the most downloaded Android apps on Uptodown throughout the year. These are the most relevant data from our 2021 report in which we have analyzed more than 2.5 billion downloads from January 1 of this year based on the activity of our 130 million unique users per month.
For yet another year, the trendy genre continues to be battle royale with PUBG Mobile (Tencent), Free Fire (Garena), and Fortnite (Epic) leading the way, as well as their variations for regional markets or releases for different devices. Due to the huge fragmentation of the Android ecosystem worldwide, it becomes almost essential to adapt the product to different markets and technologies to achieve such success levels. That is why PUBG Mobile Lite (game release for less powerful devices) collects more downloads than the game standard client. The same goes for Free Fire Max –it is unseating the already long-standing original game by offering updated graphics.
As we said a few days ago, PUBG Mobile has emerged as the most successful video game of the year. More than 150 million downloads have been figured only in 2021, adding all its releases. PUBG Mobile Lite is the leading release with 67 million downloads this year, followed by PUBG Mobile for the global market and the regional release for Korea.
PUBG Mobile rakes in over $8 million a day in 2021 and surpasses $7 billion in revenue
As for the most successful studios, Tencent also takes the cake by having 6 titles in the top 30 most downloaded, followed by Supercell (4) and Garena (2).
In terms of genres, action titles account for the highest ratio of downloads, including the aforementioned battle royale games with 52%, followed by casual games (8.6%) and arcade (6.8%). Simplicity always prevails beyond the usual trends.
Top 30 most downloaded games on Uptodown (2021)
- PUBG Mobile Lite (67.145.736) | Tencent Games
- PUBG Mobile (29.934.354) | Tencent Games
- PUBG Mobile Korea (27.967.662) | Tencent Games
- Free Fire – Battlegrounds (24.825.616) | Garena
- Free Fire MAX (18.849.300) | Garena
- Fortnite (16.550.852) | Epic Games
- Gacha Life (14.431.289) | Lumine
- Brawl Stars (11.895.343) | Supercell
- Subway Surfers (10.851.236) | SYBO Games
- Beta PUBG Mobile Lite (9.604.577) | Tencent Games
- Clash of Clans (8.935.136) | Supercell
- Among Us (7.833.741) | Innersloth
- Dream League Soccer Classic (6.319.353) | First Touch Games
- Call of Duty Mobile (6.265.128) | Activision
- PUBG New State (6.065.039) | Tencent Games
- Toca Life: World (5.881.206) | Toca Boca
- eFootball PES 2021 (4.404.798) | Konami
- Game for Peace (4.187.950) | Tencent Games
- Five Nights at Freddy’s Demo (4.090.331) | Clickteam USA
- Beta PUBG Mobile (3.875.087) | Tencent Games
- Sakura School Simulator (3.637.490) | Garusoft Development
- Clash Royale (3.333.018) | Supercell
- Terraria (3.069.661) | 505 Games
- Hello Neighbor (3.055.900) | tinyBuild
- Hay Day (3.038.652) | Supercell
- Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 Demo (2.966.787) | Clickteam USA
- Mobile Legends (2.736.979) | Moonton
- Genshin Impact (2.657.365) | Mihoyo
- Car Parking Multiplayer (2.538.391) | olzhass
- Scary Teacher 3D (2.501.270) | Z & K Games
In addition to download information, Uptodown has already analyzed other data related to user habits throughout 2021, such as the most used mobile device brands and models or the most common screen resolution.
Uptodown in 2021: the most used smartphone brands and models
