Mobile games during the holidays – analysis
Mobile applications from the ‘Games and gaming services’ category were analysed.
Category size and seasonality
During the holiday season, the average monthly number of real mobile game users was 15.4 million, and the average monthly time per user (ATS) was 638 minutes. This is a high level of engagement, but summer is not the peak period for this category. In the 12-month cycle, the highest average ATS was in January 2025, when it reached 815 minutes.
The differences in reach between the holidays and the month with the highest number of players in the period under review are less significant: they amount to approx. 5 percentage points.
Who plays? Demographics and intensity
The reach of games is inversely proportional to age. The younger the group, the higher the percentage of people who play games on smartphones.
During the summer holidays, the highest average monthly reach was achieved by the 7–14 age group (78.7%). The lowest reach was recorded among people aged 55+: it was 40.5%.
The Affinity Index confirms the overrepresentation of young people: it reaches 152 in the 7–14 age group, 128 in the 15–24 age group and 128 in the 25–34 age group; it is lowest in the 55+ age group (78).
During the holidays, the youngest (in the 7–14 age group, the monthly average is 733 minutes) and the oldest (in the 55+ age group, the monthly average is 692 minutes) spend the most minutes per month playing mobile games, even though the latter group has a relatively low reach. The shortest ATS is recorded by the 25–34 cohort (519 minutes). This is an important tip for segmentation: older players are not present en masse in this category, but when they do play, they spend a lot of time in the applications. They often choose puzzle-type titles, which naturally lead to long sessions of use.
What's being played? The most popular titles in extreme age groups
Children and young people (7–14 years old)
Roblox is the leader in this age group (1.1 million RU on average per month during the holidays), followed closely by Brawl Stars (1 million RU). The highest engagement among the TOP 10 apps was recorded for Clash Royale, where the average monthly ATS for the analysed period reached 392 minutes.
Seniors (55+)
In this age group, the top three are Words of Wonders (320,000 RU), Candy Crush Saga (289,000 RU) and Block Blast! (278,000 RU). Coin Master comes in fourth place, with an impressive ATS of 1,234 minutes per month.
Summary
The summer holidays are not a time for record-breaking mobile gaming, but they are an important period for retaining and acquiring users. The data shows a moderate decline in ATS compared to winter, stable reach, a very high overrepresentation of young people, and an interesting, often underestimated intensity of gaming in the 55+ age group.
