Overall, Supercell’s revenue has risen, thanks to the stabilisation of revenue in Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, and in large part thanks to Brawl Stars’ ascension.
AppMagic data shows an 18.9% Y/Y decline in player spending across its portfolio in 2022, and a further 23.1% drop in 2023. Q1 2024, however, showed Y/Y growth of 65.4% to $410.6 million. Downloads also grew 35.6% to 54.6 million.
From an outside perspective, the company’s recent restructure and growing live ops teams appears to have played a role in stabilising revenue for some of its titles, while Brawl Stars’ rise is arguably down to years of testing new systems, and ultimately finding a recipe for success with updates like Starr Drops and Hypercharges.
As Supercell gears up for Squad Busters, that title is again more the result of the old system, rather than the new one.
Supercharged growth?
There are early signs that a change in approach to how the company runs its live ops is bearing fruit – Clash of Clans has shown recent growth in Q1, Clash Royale revenue rose in the second half of 2023, while Brawl Stars’s changes have led to runaway success.
This has led to Supercell ranking at the No. 6 mobile games publisher in the world by App Store and Google Play revenue in March 2024, according to AppMagic, ranking above King, Dream Games and Roblox. For comparison, Supercell ranked No. 15 in March 2023.
If Squad Busters proves to be another hit – and the company was bold enough to share its $1 billion ambitions in its own consumer press release – the foundations it’s creating in its live games mean it could propel Supercell’s position even further in the months ahead.
Signs of how successful its greenlighting process is for new games is likely years away – unless mo.co makes the cut.
A lot has been written about the five-and-a-half year wait for Squad Busters – it previously had a cadence of roughly one game launch every two years after Hay Day and Clash of Clans.
But if Squad Busters achieves $1 billion+, surely it’ll be a successful result, over launching two other titles with less potential, yet require similar investment.
Most games companies would be happy with those other titles. But most games companies aren’t Supercell.
