Sensor Tower’s $82 billion figure is an IAP measure

Sensor Tower reports $82 billion of mobile-game in-app purchase revenue for 2025. Preserve “in-app purchase” when using that figure; dropping it changes the claim.State of Gaming release.

Revenue coverage is part of the number

A game can earn through purchases, advertising and other channels. A measure covering one stream cannot be converted into total business revenue without evidence about the others. Store spending also should not be treated as a publisher’s net cash receipt unless the source defines it that way.

Our recommendation is to record the estimator’s scope before using the total in a market-size calculation. Identify store coverage, geography, currency treatment and excluded revenue streams. If the public release does not answer a field, keep it blank or unknown rather than importing an assumption from another vendor.

Use the right comparison in the budget room

Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile page supplies broader app-market context, but it is not independent validation of the gaming release. Both belong to the same commercial publisher’s research system.

The $82 billion figure may help frame the scale of reported IAP spending. It cannot set the allowable CPI of a hybrid game, establish its share of all mobile monetisation or forecast cash payback. The card makes those boundaries portable, so a planning deck can cite the market context without overstating what it measures.

Inspect the evidence

Download the source-population and comparability card. The extraction separates documented facts from our analysis and unknowns.

Further reading in the existing archive: Blended ROAS Calculation: Where It Quietly Goes Wrong; The state of mobile game acquisition in 2026. These links provide background; this check does not independently verify their full contents.

Frequently asked questions

How should UA teams read Sensor Tower’s $82 billion figure when it is an IAP measure?

Preserve “in-app purchase” when citing Sensor Tower’s $82 billion mobile-game figure for 2025 — dropping that qualifier changes the claim. A game can earn through purchases, advertising and other channels; a measure covering one stream cannot be converted into total business revenue without evidence about the others. Store spending also should not be treated as a publisher’s net cash receipt unless the source defines it that way. Record the estimator’s scope before using the total in a market-size calculation: store coverage, geography, currency treatment and excluded revenue streams. If the public release does not answer a field, keep it blank or unknown rather than importing an assumption from another vendor. Sensor Tower’s State of Mobile page supplies broader app-market context but is not independent validation of the gaming release. The $82 billion figure may help frame the scale of reported IAP spending; it cannot set the allowable CPI of a hybrid game, establish its share of all mobile monetisation or forecast cash payback.