Sensor Tower has released revenue statistics for October 2019, and PUBG Mobile leads the pack by a mile.
As one of the biggest battle royale games on the planet, it should come as no surprise that the mobile port of PUBG is swimming in cash. What might be shocking though, is just how much the game has grown over the past year.
According to Sensor Tower, PUBG Mobile was the top-grossing game last month (October). Not only that, but it raked in almost $40 million more than the second-best selling game, Honor of Kings. Both of these are games by Tencent—it looks they’ve got game design down to a science.
Tencent has also learned a thing or two about monetization over the past year and the important role China plays in earning a profit. Last year at this time, PUBG Mobile was not allowed to use microtransactions in the country. After making a few tweaks to appease the government (and rebranding as Game for Peace), it made its microtransaction-laden debut earlier this year and it has been a boon for sales. PUBG Mobile’s user spending was seven times higher this October than it was last October.
China makes up 65% of the revenue, while 10% comes from the United States. The rest of the revenue is split among other countries.
One important note to make is that Sensor Tower’s data is collected from both the App Store and Google Play. However, it does not include any revenue from other third-party android stores. While these third-party stores aren’t commonly used, sales on these platforms would likely give these numbers a slight bump.
It looks like PUBG Mobile is yet to peak and will be rolling in dough for years to come. Of course, it will face a bit of challenge with the upcoming Apex Legends Mobile port coming out in the near future, but that should be nothing more than a speedbump for this behemoth of a game.
Other notable titles that made the list include Candy Crush Saga (#3), Pokémon GO (#4), and a few games that haven’t made their way to the states yet—Lineage M (#5) and Dragon Quest Walk (#6). Once these games are released worldwide they will surely climb on the list, but don’t expect PUBG Mobile to be dethroned anytime soon.
Source: SensorTower