Let’s face it. In today’s world of rapid technological advancements and digital innovation, mobile gaming has emerged as one of the world’s most lucrative and profit-making industries.
Candy Crush Saga is an excellent example of a mobile game that has contributed significantly to such numbers.
In this article, I will break down Candy Crush’s revenue and user statistics.
But first, let’s see what Candy Crush is all about and how it’s developed over the years.
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Candy Crush Overview
Candy Crush Saga, or Candy Crush as it is famously known, is a match-three puzzle game where players switch and arrange blocks of candies to form at least three matching candies to earn points and rewards.
It is a simple and easy game that involves easy starting levels that increase in difficulty as you progress. With rewards and virtual goods along the way, you are sure to succeed in most levels after a few attempts.
The Candy Crush business model is geared towards providing you with engaging gameplay, colorful and attractive graphics, and thousands of challenging levels.
Even more enticing is the fact that you can access and download Candy Crush for free and, in no time, become part of a global gaming community.
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Historical Development
Candy Crush was initially developed to target the younger age group but ended up being accepted by a diverse demographic of male and female gamers across an extensive age group.
Initially, King Digital Entertainment developed and released Candy Crush in April 2012 for Facebook. After increasing popularity among online users in the first six months, Candy Crush was launched across Play Store and App Store mobile platforms.
Since its launch, Candy Crush gained popularity and became an overnight sensation becoming the most downloaded app across Android and iOS devices in 2013.
In 2016, Activision Blizzard acquired King Digital Entertainment for $5.9 billion in a deal that made it the largest game network in the world, with over 500 million users.
This effectively means that Activision Blizzard now owns Candy Crush.
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How Does Candy Crush Make Money?
Upon its release in 2012, Candy Crush generated revenue from advertising. In 2013, however, King Digital Entertainment adopted a freemium business model (free to play) primarily involving in-app purchases to generate revenue.
In-app items can be bought using Candy Crush’s in-app currency, Gold Bars, or purchasing bundles that involve both items and Gold Bars.
Gold Bars, valued from $1 depending on your region, can be used to purchase other items in the Candy Crush shop.
The in-app purchases allow you to earn extra moves in difficult levels, buy extra lives, or buy power-ups to boost you further throughout the game.
In addition, Candy Crush also offers in-game advertising, a secondary income-generating stream, by showing video ads between levels.
The combination of the two revenue streams has pushed Candy Crush to become a highly profitable game with millions of users across the world.
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Candy Crush User Statistics
The mobile gaming industry in the world is growing tremendously by the day, ranking higher than PC and console downloads.
Thanks to the United States and Asia-Pacific regions, two of the largest digital pacesetters, the mobile gaming industry accounts for approximately 51% of the total revenue from video games.
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Number of Downloads
First-time installations of the Candy Crush game can clearly agree with the trend. The United States hit approximately 68 million (17%) downloads of Candy Crush’s 410 million first-time installations, while India came second with approximately 50 million (12%) downloads.
In 2022, Candy Crush was among the top five most downloaded gaming apps worldwide, with over 167 million new installations across the Play Store and App Store.
We can look further into this.
According to Sensor Tower, in 2019, 76% of mobile downloads came from the Play Store, with the users spending an average of $3.24 per download.
On the other hand, App Store users contribute the remaining 24% of the downloads. Of this figure, 6% comprise iPad users, spending an average of $17.41, while 18% are iPhone users who spent $9.37 on average.
One year after its release, Candy Crash received over 500 million downloads.
There’s more!
Two years later, in 2015, the number of downloads tripled up to a whopping 1.5 billion times!
The game’s popularity increased over the years, and by 2022, Candy Crush had accumulated over 3 billion downloads making it one of the most popular mobile games in the world.
In 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic, most people sought mobile games and other indoor activities to keep them company during the lockdown period.
According to Sensor Tower, in September 2020, Candy Crush was downloaded over 10 million times from the Play Store and over 2 million times from the App Store.
Crazy right?
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Number of Users
One year after Candy Crush was launched, the number of active users was 287 million.
Between 2014 and 2016, when revenue and profit were positively increasing, the number of active users followed suit, reaching 300 million.
During the first quarter of 2020, Candy Crush recorded over 273 million active users every month, with the number gradually increasing as the pandemic hit.
A report done by Business of Apps revealed that Candy Crush players spent an average of 38 minutes every day playing the game in 2019.
Candy Crush may seem like a game that people enjoy while commuting to work or getting through idle time – but you’ll be surprised at the lengths fans go to enjoy the highly addictive game.
According to Sebastian Knutsson, King’s creative director, Candy Crush averaged 46 million monthly users within a year of its release, with in-app purchases generating more than $850,000 daily.
Sensor Tower reported that in 2018, an average of $4.2 million was spent by Candy Crush players to acquire in-app purchases and other advantages in the game.
This is, in fact, a growth of 6.5% from 2017.
Is Candy Crush too addictive? Over the years, questions have been raised as to whether spending too much time playing games can have negative health results.
This does not stop over 9 million Candy Crush users from spending an average of three to six hours playing the game every day.
It gets interesting.
Since its release in 2012, Candy Crush users have spent over 73 billion hours playing the game.
According to Alex Dale, a senior executive at King, of the 270M active users, 3.4% (9.2M) play for over three hours a day, while 0.16% (432,000) play for over six hours.
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Demographics
Candy Crush is a game that cuts across different age groups and genders and spreads worldwide.
Astonishingly, over 700 million Candy Crush games are played daily on mobile devices, with women aged between 25 and 55 being the most loyal to the game demographically.
During its creation, Candy Crush was developed mainly to target women aged between 25 and 45 years.
However, that has changed significantly as Candy Crush gains more popularity.
In the United States, from the total number of active users in 2019, 64% were women, while 36% were male users.
As of 2014, the average age of Candy Crush players is 30 years old, with 50% of players aged between 20 and 40 years.
Candy Crush has received over 3 billion downloads since its release.
The puzzle game has been downloaded across 196 countries in the world. This can be translated to mean there are Candy Crush players in six of the eight continents in the world.
The United States has the highest number of active users, directly translating to its larger chunk of contribution towards Candy Crush’s total revenue.
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Number of Levels and Rounds
Taking a closer look at the numbers reveals some interesting facts.
Candy Crush Rounds
As of 2018, Candy Crush users all over the world have played over 1.1 trillion rounds since it was launched. In fact, King’s statistics reveal that 71,458 miles of Candy Crush are swiped daily on the app.
There were 212 billion rounds of Candy Crush played in the United States as of March 2018. Great Britain followed with over 50 billion rounds, while Spain was third with over 40 billion levels being played.
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Candy Crush Levels
According to Tobias Nyblom, one of King’s creative directors, the first Candy Crush released had 65 levels.
If you are a Candy Crush player, you’ve probably asked yourself the same question. Well, as of March 2023, there are 13,745 levels on iOS, Android, Amazon devices, and Facebook versions of the game.
According to King’s forums, 30 to 60 additional levels are added every Wednesday. It probably looks like there is no end in sight.
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What Types of Levels Exist in Candy Crush?
Jelly Levels: In these types of levels, you are required to clear a certain number of jellies to beat the level.
Score: This type of level requires you to score specific points using the number of moves assigned or less.
Ingredient Levels: These tricky levels involve hazelnuts, cherries, or both. You must eliminate the ingredients at a certain point during the level using arrows that indicate where the ingredients should go.
Timed Levels: These are levels in Candy Crush that require you to score a certain number of points in a stipulated amount of time.
Order Levels: In this challenge, you are required to collect a type of candy or a certain number. For example, you may be required to collect 20 blue candies, seven red candies, and 25 yellow candies.
You must collect the order before your moves run out to ensure you succeed.
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Candy Crush Revenue
In recent years, mobile games have been widely accepted among adults and kids, which has led to a steady increase in the number of downloads and the revenue generated.
Candy Crush was a significant factor in how the whole freemium industry of games strategized.
Its free-to-play business model strategy generated revenue over the roof leading to the adoption of the same concept by other games in the industry.
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In-app Purchases & Downloads
During the first year of release in 2012, Candy Crush generated approximately $77 million. However, in the next two years ending 2014, the figure skyrocketed to $1.13 billion.
Candy Crush became the first freemium game to generate revenue in excess of $1 billion, a feat achieved in a little over two years since its release.
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The next two years were a bit slow for the company.
Between 2016 and 2018, Candy Crush’s revenue declined. The income ranged between $784 million and $930 million, respectively.
However, in 2019, gamers positively responded, and Candy Crush made a comeback generating a revenue of $1.11 billion by the close of the year.
According to Statista, in 2022, Candy Crush led the race among King’s most popular apps by generating approximately $1 billion in revenue across the Play Store and App Store.
According to a report by Business of Apps, Candy Crush became the seventh highest-grossing mobile game after generating a revenue of $1.2 billion in 2021.
This saw a 15% rise in revenue from $857 million in 2020.
Reports done by Sensor Tower indicate that as of 2019, Candy Crush had reached the $2 billion revenue milestone since it was released.
Candy Crush is especially popular in the United States.
The United States alone is responsible for 55% of its lifetime revenue, amounting to approximately $1.1 billion.
Great Britain is in second place, contributing a distant $135 million or just under 7% of the revenue.
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Profits
We can’t talk about revenue without talking about profit!
Like any new business, Candy Crush started small. During its first year of release in 2012, Candy Crush made a “small” profit of $7.8 million.
As more improvements were undertaken and its expansion to the mobile industry, the profit gradually increased, and in 2014, Candy Crush leaped to a staggering $574 million in profit.
The profits declined slightly in 2015 to $516 million but took a turn for the best and were up to $740 million by the end of 2019.
In 2020, Candy Crush made $857 million in profit, an increase from the previous year.
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Wrapping Up
Candy Crush is arguably one of the most addictive mobile games in the gaming industry. The simplicity of the game is what intrigues me. You are only required to match and destroy candies in order to complete levels.
I would never have imagined a game with such simple dynamics would turn out to be one of the highest-grossing games in the mobile gaming industry.
With revenues of over $1 billion in a year and over three billion downloads, Candy Crush simply sits among the elite in mobile games and the gaming industry.
Whether you are waiting in line, chilling in class, or waiting for your next stop, Candy Crush is just a swipe away!
