Nintendo's Super Mario Run Poised to Gross More Than $70 Million in Its First Month

December 15 won't just be another day for the App Store. One week from today, Nintendo will release its first mobile game, Super Mario Run, on Apple's platform—something that not only has more than 20 million iOS users primed to tap the "get" button on day one, but publishers in the Games category and beyond prepped to and scrutinize every aspect of its launch performance.

Sensor Tower is following the title's launch closely, especially in light of the unparalleled success of Pokémon GO, a property partly owned and closely associated with Nintendo. As we await the first download and revenue figures from our Store Intelligence platform, our Mobile Insights team forecasts that Super Mario Run stands to cap off a historic year for iOS game launches by earning more than $71 million in worldwide gross revenue ($50 million net) during its first month of availability in its launch countries (which do not include China).

This would place Super Mario Run among the top five grossing iOS games of all time based on first month revenue. Furthermore, we estimate the game will be downloaded more than 50 million times worldwide in its first month, a figure approximately 56 percent larger than Pokémon GO's estimated 32 million first month downloads on iOS.

Pitting the Plumber Against Pokémon (and More)

To put our projection of more than $70 million in first month revenue into perspective, we've compared it to the performance of several top-earning iOS games during their first 30 days, including the smash hit Pokémon GO, Apple Game of the Year winner Clash Royale, and perennial top grossing title Candy Crush Soda Saga. Note that some of these apps, particularly Pokémon GO, were not available in all countries that Super Mario Run will be launching in during their first month of availability

Our forecast model considers a number of factors, including the millions who have pre-registered to receive a push notification (presumably) the moment the game goes live next week. These users, plus the many more who download the game based on App Store featuring, news coverage, word of mouth, and other motivators, will need to take the crucial step of purchasing the $9.99 full game unlock IAP in order to Nintendo to see revenue from the game.

As we've previously noted, the App Store's most successful publishers grapple with the challenge of converting free users to paid customers at even one tenth of this amount, so how Super Mario Run fares by this key metric is one aspect of the launch they'll be watching most closely.

We have no doubt that first month downloads of Super Mario Run will be historic—likely much greater than Pokêmon GO—thanks to months of prominent featuring by Apple, extensive media coverage, and more. But it's ultimately the quality of the free demo content (and the willingness of mobile users to spend $10 on an experience that's incredibly similar to free games like Rayman Adventures outside of the Mario IP) that will make or break Nintendo's first mobile gaming experiment through its conversion rate.

Come what may, we'll be closely monitoring its launch every step of the way.