Thanks to the amazing analysts at Sensor Tower we are again given some amazing Store Intelligence data to report on. The data given shows us that the mobile gaming market has grown extremely despite the massive changes to the world this year due to quarantine and the pandemic. Let’s look at these growths over the year and examine the 5 Mobile games which crossed $1Billion in revenue in 2020!
Mobile games worldwide revenue in 2020
This year has seen a huge explosion of mobile gaming due to everyone being at home, this has caused player spending to rise significantly. The games that were already on the top in terms of spending have all seen massive boosts to their revenue because of this. PUBG Mobile from Tencent is the top game with $2.6 Billion which is a massive 64.3% increase from its 2019 earnings. Meanwhile, in second place Honor of Kings trails very close behind, another Tencent game, which has generated $2.5 billion in player spending, a 42.8% increase from 2019.
It’s impressive to see how far these two games on top are from the rest of the competition. In 3rd place, we have Niantic’s Pokemon GO with revenue of $1.2 billion a 30% increase from last year. Coin master and Roblox both round out the top 5 with $1.1 billion. With 5 games generating $1 billion-plus in revenue in a single year, we have a new record for cumulative mobile gaming profits!
Position of Genshin Impact
Well, it may come as a surprise to many, but Genshin Impact didn’t make it to the top 5 this year but when the situation is looked at from a different perspective everything becomes clearer. Don’t forget that Genshin Impact only released on September 28th, 2020, meanwhile the rest of these games have all been out the entire year. When profits are only examined from when Genshin was released until the year ends, it’s much more obvious how much money Genshin Impact is bringing in. While it couldn’t topple Honor of Kings, they were still able to closely win against the juggernaut of PUBG Mobile. Ultimately, even though Genshin was only the 2nd most successful game worldwide since its launch, it has managed to be the biggest mobile RPG launch in the United States period!
PUBG Mobile continues to earn profit
Even though Genshin Impact managed to beat out PUBG in year-end sales, the game still made massive profits all of 2020 to reach a staggering $4.3 Billion Gross in lifetime IAP. Most of the sales made in PUBG Mobile have come from its battle pass which is known as the “Royale Pass”. Much like battle passes in other games, players essentially pay subscriptions in order to get bonuses throughout each season. Even though it managed to almost tie with Honor of Kings, the model in PUBG is much more predictable as players will consistently purchase their battle pass every season. While in Honor of Kings players must purchase heroes or skins so the onus is on the developers to make these things enticing.
In one month at the peak start of the lockdowns, PUBG mobile was able to make $300 million alone in March 2020. That value is almost equal to the entire gross of Genshin for 2020. Spending may have tapered off throughout the year, but even so, it lowering to 174.2 million by November still granted it the title of No.2 in grossing for that month. It was only behind its Tencent sibling Honor of Kings.
Do let us know your thoughts in the comment section about 5 Mobile Games crossed $1 Billion revenue in 2020 where PUBG Mobile is at top!
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