Hearthstone's Mobile Players Spent $165 Million Last Year, Up 5% After a 2017 Slump

If you're thinking Hearthstone has played all its best cards on mobile nearly five years after launch, data from Sensor Tower's Store Intelligence platform shows otherwise. Launched in spring 2014, Blizzard's World of Warcraft spinoff took in an estimated $165 million worldwide last year across the App Store and Google Play, which represented growth of 5 percent over 2017. That single-digit growth becomes significant when considering that the title's global revenue on mobile actually declined 13 percent between 2016 and 2017.

Our data reveals that Blizzard largely has China to thank for the return to positive growth territory for the title. While Hearthstone experienced a year-over-year decline in U.S. player spending on mobile of about 10 percent last year, gross revenue from Chinese iOS gamers surged 34 percent during the same period, driving the overall growth of the game.

China's iPhone and iPad users accounted for about 31 percent of spending in mobile Hearthstone last year, or approximately $51 million, up from 24 percent in 2017. U.S. player spending in the title decreased from $35 million in 2017 to about $31.3 million last year.

All told, Hearthstone has grossed more than $700 million on mobile worldwide since its 2014 launch, according to Sensor Tower estimates.