Dr. Mario World's First Week Downloads Reach a Healthy Five Million Globally

Millions of mobile gamers went to the doctor last week—Dr. Mario, that is. Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows that downloads of Nintendo's fifth mobile game, Dr. Mario World, surpassed five million worldwide in its first week of availability, with revenue ahead of several top mobile puzzle titles in the same period following their launches.

In terms of first week downloads, Dr. Mario World ranks fourth among Nintendo's mobile launches, significantly ahead of Dragalia Lost, which saw close to 860,000 installs during its initial seven days in the five markets where it debuted.

As the above chart shows, Dr. Mario world managed about 60 percent of the first week downloads of both Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes, which saw 8.5 million and 8.4 million installs, respectively. It should be noted that Super Mario Run's figure is iOS-only as the game didn't launch on Google Play until later in 2016. Fire Emblem Heroes was available in 13 fewer markets than Dr. Mario World during its first week.

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp had the best first week of any Nintendo mobile game to date with approximately 14.8 million players downloading the title in its first seven days.

Still, for a property with less name recognition than Mario and Fire Emblem, this is a very a strong showing for Nintendo's first mobile puzzle title in terms of downloads.

How Dr. Mario World's Revenue Stacks Up

While Nintendo's other mobile games have out-earned Dr. Mario World their first weeks—some significantly—it's important to look at the publisher's latest title in context of the puzzle genre. To do this, we analyzed the first week revenue of current top 25 mobile puzzle titles with similarities to Dr. Mario World and found that its $500,000 in player spending to date is healthy in comparison.

Toon Blast from Peak Games, which launched in 2017 and grossed approximately $325 million last year, saw just $90,000 in its first week. Meanwhile, King's latest Candy Crush title, Candy Crush Friends Saga, managed about $170,000 more than Dr. Mario World in its first seven days on the heels of significantly more pre-launch marketing and the franchise's formidable existing audience on mobile. That title has grossed more than $100 million to date worldwide.

Nintendo and co-developer LINE will no doubt be tuning Dr. Mario World's monetization mechanics in response to player engagement and feedback over the coming weeks, and we'll have more on the title's performance as its launch progresses.