While the United States mobile gaming market continues to be strong, there’s no question that a lot of talent comes from overseas. One look at App Annie’s list of the top 52 publishers of 2015 clearly proves the point.
The list, posted on the company’s official blog, indicates that 28 companies on the list come from the Asia-Pacific market, followed by the U.S. with 17 and Europe with seven. That confirms that more than half of the overall list consists of companies like mixi, GungHo Online and LINE.
Based on revenue earned in both the iOS App Store and Google Play over the course of the year, Supercell earned the No. 1 one spot on the list with hit games like Boom Beach and Clash of Clans. Closely behind in second was King, riding the strength of its Candy Crush Saga games following the completion of its $5.9 billion acquisition by Activision earlier this year. Much of the top 10 consists of Asia-Pacific companies, like GunHo, Tencent and NetEase. Only two U.S. companies, Machine Zone and Electronic Arts, made the top 10.
Overall, the U.S. still has the most companies with 17, followed closely behind by Japan with 16; China has nine, and three are from South Korea.
There were plenty of surprises, like how the social network service (and creators of Monster Strike) mixi managed to overtake GungHo Online to take the third place spot. Other surprises include the South Korean Netmarble landing eighth place while China’s Netease comes in ninth. Both companies made big moves last year, with Netmarble investing $130 million in SGN and NetEase reporting $2.7 billion in annual games revenue.
The full rankings are as follows:
