Candy Crush Saga is one of the most popular mobile gaming apps worldwide, generating 25.65 million downloads in the fourth quarter of 2024. Initially released as a social gaming title on Facebook, the casual match-three game quickly won the hearts of gamers worldwide and has proved its enormous staying power over the past decade. To date, Candy Crush Saga is one of the highest-grossing gaming apps worldwide.

Introduction

Candy Crush Saga Statistics: Ever found yourself saying “just one more level†and then suddenly it's midnight? Yeah, it’s me. Candy Crush Saga, the legendary match-three mobile game that once stole all our free time in the early 2010s, is still going strong, not just as a game, but as a big global digital phenomenon.

But how big is it, really? We're not just talking about fun and colors anymore. We're talking billions of downloads, millions of daily players, and revenues that compete with Hollywood blockbusters. It's no exaggeration to say that Candy Crush isn’t just a game; it’s an industry case study.

In this article, I’d like to dive deep into Candy Crush Saga statistics, from its download numbers to revenue streams, player demographics, daily play habits, and the surprising science behind why people just can’t stop swiping candies. Whether you're a gamer, a mobile app enthusiast, or a data geek, these stats will help you to understand a world far beyond the gameplay.

Candy Crush Saga is a free-to-play tile-matching video game first released by game developer King in April 2012. In the fourth quarter of 2024, the Candy Crush Saga mobile app grossed 265 million U.S. dollars, well below its all-time high in the second quarter of 2023. A sweet success story Candy Crush Saga was first launched as a social game on Facebook before making its transition to mobile, where it quickly became one of the highest-grossing mobile games of all time. Despite over a decade on the market, the popularity of the match-3 title is still unabated. The games publisher King quickly released several sequels, including Candy Crush Soda Saga (2014), Candy Crush Jelly Saga (2016), and Candy Crush Friends Saga (2018). All these casual gaming app titles are financially successful but have never reached the heights of the original game. The casual gaming genre Casual games are one of the most popular gaming genres worldwide, consistently ranking among the most downloaded and highest-grossing gaming apps. In October 2024, Block Blast! was the most downloaded free casual gaming app worldwide, generating more than 24 million combined downloads across Google Play and the Apple App Store. My Supermarket Simulator was ranked second with 20 million global downloads. In 2022, the hypercasual simulation subgenre accounted for 6.6 percent of all gaming app downloads in the United States, ahead of word and hypercasual runner games.

Developed by King, Candy Crush Saga is a puzzle video game in which players swap different types of candy on a game board in order to match three or more of the same type. The game was first released on Facebook in 2012 and has since become available on most mobile operating systems and on browser. Despite being in its tenth year on the market, the original Candy Crush Saga is still the leading game in the series, generating global revenues of over 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2024.

In the second quarter of 2023, 238 million people accessed the mobile gaming company King's apps per month. Popular titles include Candy Crush Saga, Farmville Saga as well as Bubble Witch Saga, all of which are monetized through in-game purchases. King's gaming apps are available on Facebook as well as on mobile platforms. In 2014, King reached record the highest revenue in its history, having generated 2.26 billion U.S. dollars that year. Two years later, in February 2016, the company was acquired by Activision Blizzard, as part of a deal worth 5.9 billion U.S. dollars.

A January 2022 survey found that about 31 percent of United States adults had heard a lot about the casual game Candy Crush Saga, and around 32 percent of respondents had heard "some" about it. The tile-matching puzzle game was released in 2012 and remained very popular, being one of the leading gaming apps by revenue for both Android and iPhone as of June 2022.

Since it was first launched in 2004, Facebook has developed from a humble social media page to a global phenomenon. The site can be used for catching up with friends, advertising businesses, and passing the time with games. The two most popular games on the social media site are 8 Ball Pool and Candy Crush Saga, both of which boasted 10 million daily active users in 2019.

Candy Crush’s sweet success Developed by King, Candy Crush Saga is a puzzle video game in which players swap different types of candy on a game board in order to match three or more of the same type. The game was first released on Facebook in 2012 and has since become available on most mobile operating systems and on browser. Although the game is free-to-play, users have the choice of purchasing power-ups in order to help them get past particularly tricky levels. The original Candy Crush Saga generated revenue of 945 million U.S. dollars worldwide in 2018, while the newest release, Candy Crush Friends Saga, generated a further three million U.S. dollars. Unsurprisingly, King has seen its revenue skyrocket after the global success of Candy Crush – the comparatively humble revenue of 58.5 million U.S. dollars in 2010 soared to over two billion U.S. dollars by 2018.

King vs. Zynga One of King’s biggest rivals in the social gaming world is Zynga. The company’s best-known game is FarmVille, an agricultural simulation game which launched in 2009. Its sequel, FarmVille 2, was launched in 2012 and can still be found on the list of the most popular Facebook games based on number of daily active users. Zynga’s revenue stood at 907 million U.S. dollars in 2018. The popularity of FarmVille can be seen by the fact that the company’s revenue peaked in 2012, the year that the game was released.

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The match-three puzzle video game Candy Crush has started being popular among smartphone users all over the world since it was first released, and it is still one of the most downloaded game apps available. Airnow conducted a study on the monthly number of downloads from the Apple App Store (including both iPhone and iPad) of the Candy Crush app in Italy from ********* to *********. As of the survey period, the number of downloads peaked at ** thousand in ************.

In the 2025 year to date, Candy Crush Saga was King's most popular app with approximately 64 million downloads across the Apple App Store and Google Play worldwide. Originally released as Facebook game in 2012, the match-three title is still very popular and also generated more than 651 million U.S. dollars in revenue in the measured period.

Founded in Sweden in 2003, King is a video game developer that is most famous for its blockbuster gaming hit, Candy Crush Saga. The developer’s revenue reached almost 2.79 billion U.S. dollars in 2022, a far cry from revenue of less than 60 million U.S. dollars in 2010.

King of the developers In its early years in the social gaming world, King relied on in-game advertising and micro-transactions to generate revenue. The latter enabled players to make in-game purchases to improve their virtual world or help them past a particularly tricky level. However, in a move to win over its legion of fans, the company decided to remove all in-game advertising in June 2013 and focused on micro-transactions to bring in the money. This strategy seemed to pay off as the monthly active users of King continued to increase and peaked at 550 million users at the beginning of 2015. However, the MAU figure has been steadily falling in the ensuing years and the company was acquired in February 2016 by Activision Blizzard, famed for games such as World of Warcraft and Overwatch, in a deal worth almost six billion U.S. dollars. The publisher has since seen an upturn in its fortunes and registered record operating income of 740 million U.S. dollars in 2019.

Candy Crush Saga – King’s jewel in the crown The more than tenfold increase of King’s revenue between 2012 and 2013 is down to just one game – Candy Crush Saga. The colorful puzzle game became an overnight sensation and could be seen on smartphones across the world. While the game itself is free-to-play, users have the option of making in-game purchases to help them get past certain levels. This is where King’s micro-transaction revenue model truly paid off as player spending in Candy Crush mobile games worldwide reached over one billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Despite the fast-paced nature of mobile gaming and the new releases that hit our screens every day, Candy Crush Saga still remains one of the most popular free-to-play games on the market.

Companies have developed and improved the methods of monetising their games, with free-to-play (F2P) games with in-game purchases driving expansion. Over the five years through 2025-26, industry revenue is expected to expand at a compound annual rate of 1.5%, including a projected jump of 3.8% in 2025-26, to reach £1.8 billion. Leading developers like Activision Blizzard's King have harnessed microtransactions, advertising and in-app purchases to sustain growth, as evidenced by the enduring success of flagship titles like Candy Crush Saga. Meanwhile, the demographic has broadened as smartphone penetration among both young adults and the over-65 cohort reached new heights, supporting a larger, more diverse player base. The industry’s output has jumped on the back of technological advances, supportive policymaking and a steady influx of skilled graduates from the UK’s 140 game development-focused academic institutions. Institutionally, the introduction of the Video Games Expenditure Credit in 2023, which delivers up to 34% tax relief on UK-based development, has incentivised both domestic and multinational developers to ramp up investment, fuelling innovation and supporting profit, especially for high-scalability F2P titles. Profit remains high in the industry as large companies have few costs associated with each additional download of their game products. Self-owned developers also have high profitability as they intend to withdraw equity rather than direct wages. Industry revenue is forecast to climb at a compound annual rate of 5.3% over the five years through 2029-20 to reach £2.4 billion. Growth is set to be fuelled by accelerating trends in cross-platform integration, data-driven personalisation and live-ops infrastructure poised to enhance player retention and spend. The government’s ambitious Wireless Infrastructure Strategy, aiming for nationwide 5G by 2030, will enable developers to launch more sophisticated, bandwidth-intensive titles, spanning real-time multiplayer games to AR applications, with greater confidence. Recruitment of high-skilled developers is expected to remain competitive, yet the UK’s expanding suite of game-related university degrees and a tech-focused immigration regime should offset talent shortages.

Mobile games make up the majority of video games released each year, with thousands of new additions to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store every year. By the mid-2010s, mobile games had...

In June 2025, Candy Crush Saga was the top-grossing gaming app in the Google Play Store in Sweden. The action game title generated ******* U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. Coin Master was the second-most-grossing gaming app title with approximately ******* U.S. dollars in revenue during that month.

In September 2022, Candy Crush Saga was the top-grossing gaming app in the Google Play Store in the Netherlands. The match-3 game title generated *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenues from Android users. Coin Master was the second-most-grossing gaming app title with approximately *** thousand U.S. dollars in revenue during that month.

In 2025 to date, Candy Crush Saga was King's most popular app with approximately 651 million U.S. dollars in revenues across the Apple App Store and Google Play worldwide. Originally released as Facebook game in 2012, the match-three title is still very popular and also generated close to 65 million downloads in the measured period.

King is a video game developer that shot to fame in 2012 with its global hit, Candy Crush Saga. As a result of this game's roaring success, the company's average revenue per user has grown in recent years and is expected to reach ***** U.S. dollars by 2025.

Royal Match was the top-grossing puzzle game worldwide in August 2025, generating more than 114 million U.S. dollars through in-app purchase revenues. Candy Crush Saga was ranked second with nearly 90 million U.S. dollars in monthly IAP revenue.

In July 2025, Candy Crush Saga was the top-grossing gaming app for iPad in the United Kingdom. The match-3 title generated more than 1.1 million U.S. dollars in revenues from iPad users. Royal Match was the second-most-grossing gaming app title with approximately 639,000 U.S. dollars in revenue during that month.

A December 2021 survey among mobile gamers in the United States found that Candy Crush Saga and Candy Crush Soda Saga were the two most-played games throughout the last year. Overall, ** and ** percent of the respondents had played these titles, respectively. Call of Duty: Mobile ranked third, being popular among ** of the mobile gamers in the country, followed by Pokémon GO, with ** percent reach among mobile gaming audiences.