PUBG Mobile Lifetime Revenue Hits $3 Billion With 2020 Already Pitching in $1.3 Billion: Sensor Tower

PUBG Mobile, the uber-popular battle royale title from Tencent Games, has seen a massive global revenue gain in the first half of this year, bringing its lifetime collection to $3 billion (roughly Rs. 22,457 crores). PUBG Mobile, along with its Chinese variant known as Game For Peace, has collected a total of $1.3 billion (roughly Rs. 9,731 crores) in 2020 alone. With people staying mostly indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic and government-imposed lockdowns, the revenues hit a record high of $270 million (roughly Rs. 2,021 crores) in March.

According to Store Intelligence estimates by San Francisco-based Sensor Tower, PUBG Mobile dominated the multiplayer battle royale games arena with revenues nearly four times greater than another hugely popular title, Garena Free Fire. In 2020, while the Garena offering collected over $300 million (roughly Rs. 2,245 crores), Knives Out from NetEase generated over $260 million (roughly Rs. 1,946 crores) in revenue. Following them is Activision's Call of Duty: Mobile that turned in a revenue of $220 million (roughly Rs. 1,646 crores).

Popular worldwide with 734 million downloads, PUBG Mobile saw the greatest number of downloads in India, which ranks at the top with 175 million installs. This makes up 24 percent of global numbers. China follows in second with 16.7 percent while the US ranks third with 6.4 percent of downloads.

The lion's share of revenue has been generated by China's Game For Peace, collecting close to $1.6 billion (roughly Rs. 11,975 crores) in lifetime player spending on China's App Store. This makes up for 52 percent of global collections. The US comes second with nearly 14 percent, while Japan ranks third with 5.6 percent.

The App Store has also seen the biggest share of revenue collections, with 79 percent of player spending. Google Play, on the other hand, accounts for the greatest number of downloads, at 65 percent of all installs.

PUBG Mobile keeps on adding fun and quirky updates and map items to keep things fresh for the gamers. Earlier this week, a trailer for the upcoming 14th season was leaked that suggests new skins and vehicles along with the possible title, “Spark the Fame.” The ongoing season is expected to round up on July 12 and the new one should launch shortly after.

WWDC 2020 had a lot of exciting announcements from Apple, but which are the best iOS 14 features for India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.