Mario Kart Tour Surpasses 200 Million Downloads and $200 Million in Lifetime Revenue

Mario Kart Tour from Nintendo has surpassed $200 million in player spending and 200 million downloads, maintaining its position since launch as one of the biggest mobile racing games worldwide, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows.

The wildly popular franchise had a stellar start to life on mobile, racing past 100 million downloads and racking up $17.8 million in its first 11 days following its official launch on September 25, 2019. It surpassed its first $100 million in just less than six months, powered by the title’s Gold Pass subscription, available for $4.99 per month, which enables players to obtain more in-game rewards such as Gold Gifts and access to 200cc races.

During the last year from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021, Mario Kart Tour was Nintendo’s No. 2 revenue generating game, accumulating $92.7 million in revenue worldwide from the App Store and Google Play. It ranks behind the publisher’s biggest mobile hit to date, Fire Emblem Heroes, which accumulated $163.4 million in that time, and above Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, which generated $78 million.

Pole Position

The United States has been the most lucrative market for Mario Kart Tour, generating close to $76 million in lifetime revenue, or 37.6 percent of the total. Japan ranks No. 2 with 28 percent of global player spending, while France ranks No. 3 with 7.3 percent. The App Store makes up the lion’s share of revenue, picking up 63.4 percent of total lifetime revenue. Google Play, meanwhile, accounts for 36.6 percent of player spending.

When it comes to download, the U.S. once again ranks No. 1 with 37.4 million downloads, or 18.6 percent of the total. It’s followed by Brazil in No. 2 with 9.4 percent of all downloads, and Mexico in No. 3 with 7.8 percent. Google Play comes out on top for downloads, generating 56.2 percent of global installs to date. The App Store, meanwhile, accounts for 43.8 percent.

Top Racers

Using Sensor Tower’s Game Taxonomy and Game Intelligence products to analyze the mobile Racing genre globally, we can see that Mario Kart Tour ranked as the No. 4 revenue generating title in the category from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. The top grossing title was KartRider Rush+ from Nexon, which has generated approximately $169 million over the last year. QQ Speed from Tencent ranked No. 2 with more than $146 million, while CSR Racing 2 from Zynga-owned NaturalMotion ranked No. 3 with $121.5 million. Looking at just the U.S. market, Mario Kart Tour was the No. 2 revenue generating mobile racer during the period, picking up $35 million, ranking behind CSR Racing 2, which generated $73.3 million.

Like all other categories, the Racing genre has seen strong growth over the last year. In the U.S., Racing game revenue from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 rose by 24.3 percent year-over-year to approximately $202 million. Without the high profile launch of Mario Kart Tour in that period, however, overall category downloads fell by 13.7 percent Y/Y to 99 million.

Gap in the Market?

While Mario Kart Tour has not been able to sustain the highs of its big launch, it has maintained a fairly consistent revenue stream, generating $7.7 million on average per month globally over the last year. The title is an example of the power of big IP in generating launch buzz, particularly important with the looming IDFA changes. Meanwhile, the lucrative returns in Asia from powerhouse racers KartRider Rush+, Crazy Racing KartRider, and QQ Speed, which between them have generated $1.5 billion in lifetime revenue, suggests there could be bigger market potential in the West for the Racing genre than we’ve seen to date.