For all its success in the West, Finland-based
Clash of Clans developer Supercell didn’t really have its foot in the door of the massive Asian mobile games market. Likewise, Japanese
Puzzles & Dragons developer GungHo has enormous success in its home region, and needed some traction in the West.
So the two
teamed up to cross-promote each others’ free-to-play games last month, and now analytics firm
App Annie has offered a bit of insight on how the cross promotion has helped Supercell in Japan. It’s data that other Western-based publishers and developers should pay attention to.
During June,
Clash of Clans (available only on iOS) rose from the 98th overall iPhone app to the 11th by the end of the month on Japan's top-grossing charts. Japan didn’t drive as much growth as the U.S., China and Turkey, according to App Annie, but the June iPhone graph for the game’s Japanese revenue growth is telling, nonetheless (note that App Annie's report doesn't include iPad figures):
There was also a dramatic rise in
Clash of Clans’ download rankings on iPhone in Japan, following the promotional partnership with GungHo on June 6. The announcement plus an update for Japanese language support later in the month boosted the game from below 500 on the all-apps download rankings, all the way to the top.
On the worldwide iOS charts from App Annie,
Clash of Clans was number one, topping both King’s
Candy Crush Saga and GungHo’s
Puzzle & Dragons (which topped Google Play’s top-grossing charts for the month).
Supercell ended up holding the top spot on the monthly revenue charts for June on iOS, while GungHo dropped from first to third.
There’s more on June’s sales at
App Annie’s blog.
