28% of casual game installs from non-gaming publishers come from utility apps, Liftoff’s Casual Gaming Apps Report reveals

Liftoff’s 2025 Casual Gaming Apps Report also found that hypercasual and hybrid puzzle revenues have risen 240% over 12 months

Liftoff, the leading provider of marketing, monetization, and creative solutions for the mobile industry, and Singular, the end-to-end marketing attribution and analytics platform, released their 2025 Casual Gaming Apps Report. The report, based on combined Liftoff and Singular data from February 2024 to February 2025, which includes 1.4 trillion ad impressions, 63 billion clicks, 2.5 billion installs, and $11.9 billion in ad spend, reveals that utility and entertainment apps drive the majority of non-gaming app installs for casual games.

Ads in utility and productivity apps account for 28% of non-gaming app installs for casual games, while 25% come from entertainment apps. Photo and social media apps also play an important role in converting users to casual gaming, accounting for a combined 25%.

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Liftoff and Singular’s Casual Gaming Apps Report covers three main topics: an annual breakdown of benchmarks for advertising costs and revenue, the mobile game genres and subgenres driving the most installs, and the latest trends shaking up the casual gaming market.

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Key findings from the report, which you can download here.

include:

• Utility apps drive the most installs as advertisers look outside of gaming audiences
• Hypercasual and hybrid puzzles revenue grows 240%
• Mobile game CPIs are 907% higher on iOS
• Minigame events are on the rise in top-grossing titles
• Match 3 games are making a comeback