An Exploratory Study on Domestic Mobile Games and In-app Payment Fees

Abstract

The mobile application (APP) market is growing at an unprecedented speed. Amid such growth, the global platform providers are mandating exclusive in-app payments and charging 30% for platform commission fees. A serious tension has arisen between mobile global platform providers and local content providers. The present study attempts to analyze the domestic mobile game market and in-app payment commission fees. This study estimates the size of the domestic mobile game market and platform commission fees by directly using publicly available financial statements and footnote information of some representative listed mobile game firms. Also, the study analyzes the cost structures of the same sample firms and attempts to draw some implications on sustainable growths of the mobile game ecosystem. We estimated that, in 2019, the domestic mobile game market is around 4.9 trillion Won and the ensuing in-app payment commission fees market was 1.5 trillion Won. High market share firms display a proportional increase in in-app payment commission fees in relation to sales growth. This, in turn, makes the in-app payment commission fees a primary cost item far exceeding employee salaries and R&D expenses. During the same period, low market share firms generated a mere profit or experienced net loss. Analysis of the cost structure reveals that these firms are even more liable to higher in-app payment commission fee cost structure than high market share. Most constituents of the mobile game ecosystem are small business entrepreneurs. By employing a micro-level analysis, the study estimates that, in 2019, a representative median firm generates 530 million Won in sales. At the same time, it spends 190 million Won in employee salaries, 50 Won million in R&D and 190 million Won in in-app payment commission fees, respectively. In the absence of other cost items, these three cost items alone account for 73.8% of sales revenue. The results imply that a sustainable growth of the local mobile game market heavily depends upon the cost structure of such representative median firm, the in-app payment commission fees being the primary cost item of such firm.