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.

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, gaming company King (also known as King.com and King Digital Entertainment) had generated 266 million U.S. dollars in operating income. Popular titles include Candy Crush Saga, Farm Ville Saga as well as Bubble Witch Saga, all of which are monetized through in-game item purchases. King's gaming apps are available on Facebook as well as on mobile platforms. Since being acquired by by Activision Blizzard in February 2016, King operates as a reportable segment for its parent company.

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.

In 2024, social gaming company King (also known as King.com and King Digital Entertainment) generated 1.46 billion U.S. dollars in IAP revenues. The top grossing mobile gaming titles published by King include the match-3 genre classic Candy Crush saga, as well as titles like Farm Heroes Saga, and Bubble Witch saga.

Between January and May 2024, Candy Crush Saga was King's most popular app with approximately 395 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 156 million downloads in the measured period.

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.

In 2022, social gaming company King.com reported an operating income of 1.12 billion U.S. dollars. Popular King titles include Candy Crush Saga, Farm Ville Saga as well as Bubble Witch Saga. The majority of company revenue is generated via in-game sales of virtual items. Since its acquisition in February 2016, the company operates as a reportable segment under parent company Activision Blizzard.

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 12.59 U.S. dollars by 2025.

In 2024, Candy Crush Saga was King's most popular app with approximately 111 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 1 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in the measured period.

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.

In a world where people are constantly on the move and seeking new forms of entertainment to make their journeys go faster, mobile gaming is bigger than ever. In September 2019, Google Play Games was the most popular mobile gaming related app in the United States with over 18.74 million monthly users. The highest individual game on the list was Pokémon GO, which averaged 10.66 million users in the same month.

Google Play Games Google Play Games is an online gaming service developed for Android. It allows users to develop their profiles, share their achievements, and see how they are faring on global leaderboards. Users with Google phones can also use the Google Play Store to download new gaming apps – a total of almost 30 billion downloads were carried out in the store worldwide in 2018, over three times the amount of Apple’s App Store. The leading mobile gaming app on the Google Play Store worldwide is Candy Crush Saga. The legendary puzzle game generated revenue of over 67 million U.S. dollars in January 2019. Given that the game is free to play, how has the game’s developer, King, made it into such a commercial success?

Sweet success of Candy Crush Saga First released by King in April 2012 for Facebook, Candy Crush swiftly became a global phenomenon that took over smartphones around the world. Despite now being over seven years old, it still ranks very highly among other gaming apps based on the revenue it generates. While the game itself is free to download and play, users are offered tempting in-game purchases in the form of power-ups to help them get past particularly tricky levels. It seems that many people have relied on this help as almost one billion U.S. dollars was spent by players on the original Candy Crush Saga worldwide in 2018. Over 500 million U.S. dollars was spent on the various spin-offs of the game, leaving it in no doubt that Candy Crush has been a sweet success for King.

Candy Crush creator King was the top-grossing video gaming company in Sweden in 2023, generating about 665 million euro in net sales during the measured period. Mojang, best known for its sandbox game Minecraft, is the second-largest video game developer in Sweden based with 351 million euro during the measured period.