The Most Downloaded Games in the World

I crunched the numbers and ranked the most downloaded mobile games in the world and wow, September was a very active month with lots of winners and losers.

Subway Surfers was the most downloaded mobile game in the world in September. We estimate the long-running champ saw 17M downloads, beating hyper-casual My Perfect Hotel by just a million downloads. That's actually pretty massive for a hyper-casual title.

The majority of My Perfect Hotel's downloads came from Google Play, which is exactly what you'd expect, but the title also made it to the #2 spot on the App Store, which is impressive.

Roblox, Build a Queen, and Royal Match round out the top 5 mobile games in September.

Ready for all the changes? All you need to do is look at the App Store's chart for the month.

Every app, with one exception, moved!

Lots of Movement

Royal Match, Subway Surfers, and Roblox all climbed when compared to August. High Energy Heroes (translated), a China-only title that's joining the wave I highlighted last month, propelled into the 6th spot in September with 2M downloads from the App Store, according to our estimates.

Happy Match Cafe and Retro Bowl College made the list for the first time, and my one of my personal favorites, 8 Ball Pool, made the list for the first time in a long time.

The App Store has been very dynamic for quite some time now, but this is one of the most dynamic months in memory. All of these titles are being pushed heavily by ads, which might mean advertisers have finally figured out life post-ATT.

Google Play also had more fluctuations than expected, which reinforces the theory.

Together, the top 10 most downloaded mobile games in the world made their way into 125M devices in September, according to our estimates. That's a bunch lower than August, but that's to be expected with the summer ending and kids going back to school.