Tencent Games, NetEase Games and Mihoyo continue to occupy 3 seats in the Top 5 global mobile game publishers’ revenue rankings.
Sensor Tower store intelligence platform shows the revenue ranking of Chinese mobile game publishers in the global App Store and Google Play in February 2022. A total of 36 Chinese vendors were listed in the Top 100 global mobile game publisher revenue list this period, drawing a combined total of nearly $2 billion, accounting for nearly 37.9% of the global Top 100 mobile game publisher revenue, as reported in detail below.
Special note: This report only counts publisher revenue and does not include third-party Android channels in China.
Top 30 mobile game publisher revenue in China
Tencent Games, NetEase Games and Mihoyo continue to occupy 3 seats in the Top 5 global mobile game publisher revenue list.
In February, “Song of the City on Cloud” successfully ranked among the Top 5 mobile game bestsellers in Korea, and with the solid performance of “Puzzles & Survival” in overseas markets, Mihoyo advanced 2 spots to No. 4.
After the successful launch of the farm simulation mobile game “Family Farm Adventure Fifi Adventure”, Century Games’ placement card RPG mobile game “Valor Legends” entered a rapid rise in revenue, becoming another growth engine for the publisher in the overseas market. In this period, Century Games ranked 61st in the global mobile game publisher revenue ranking and 20th in the Chinese mobile game publisher ranking, with the top three revenue markets being the US, Japan and Germany, accounting for 39.6%, 7.4% and 7.2% respectively. The product line is mainly popular medium mobile games from Europe and the US, spanning multiple titles and categories.
Longteng Jianhe’s “King’s Choice” continued its strong growth momentum, with a 31% month-on-month increase in revenue in February. Even though empire simulation mobile games have been going overseas for many years, data shows that prior to the game’s launch, Asia had been the top-grossing market for the category. From January 2020 to December 2021, the revenue from the Japanese market accounted for 32.6% of the total overseas revenue of the theme, and the East and Southeast Asia markets accounted for more than 65% of the total overseas revenue. However, due to the fierce competition, the development of this category is gradually showing signs of fatigue.
Driven by King’s Choice, the US is now the highest-grossing overseas market for empire simulation titles. This provides new ideas for Chinese mobile games going abroad, and mature categories opening up new regional markets may be able to rejuvenate.
The Chinese national style social mobile game “Ling Yunnuo” launched by Friendship Time in January saw a steady increase in revenue, making the publisher’s revenue increase by 5% month-on-month, returning to the 29th place on the list.
In addition to the list, the Chinese mobile game publishers shortlisted in the global revenue TOP100 are Xinxin Network, Chuangku Interactive, Competitive World, Bilibili, Luzhu Technology and Zilong Games, a total of 36 manufacturers.
China App Store mobile game revenue Top 20
Every year during the winter and summer holidays, Tencent’s Crossfire and QQ Speed have seen periodic peaks in revenue, helped by rich activities, and this year is no exception. These two games saw revenue growth of 6% and 23% YoY respectively this period, ranking 7th and 16th on the list.
Chess mobile games also reaped the Spring Festival long holiday dividend. In this period, the revenue of Tuyou’s “Fishing Battle” increased by 25% YoY, setting a new revenue record and jumping to the top 10 on the list.
With the opening of the second linkage of China Trip Love, the revenue of “Light – Encounter” increased by 41% YoY, which is the 3rd ranking month of the game’s revenue since its launch, and the appeal of virtual anchors is evident. Source