Tencent‘s multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) Honor of Kings has beaten out all other competition yet again to generate the largest amount of global revenue on mobile for the month.
According to Sensor Tower, the hugely popular title earned $264.5 million in player spending for the month of May, with 95 per cent of that number originating from those in China. Taiwan and Thailand placed second and third respectively at close to two per cent each. Honor of Kings grew by 13 per cent year-over-year for the month of May.
Tencent continued to dominate the market heavily, as PUBG Mobile secured second spot at $258 million in gross revenue, representing a 5.2 per cent rise from May 2020. More than half of spending (55.6 per cent) was from China and its localised version, Game for Peace. The US then followed at around 11 per cent.
Genshin Impact from MiHoYo shot back up to third position after falling to sixth last month, while Roblox maintained fourth once more.
Comeback king
Lineage M broke back into the charts at fifth spot for overall revenue and also topped the group for revenue across Google Play.
This looks to have been attributed to the 17th anniversary of the North American release for Lineage II and the various in-game events surrounding the series. Either way, developer NCSoft will be pleased with the outcome.
Garena Free Fire achieved its best month ever for player spending in May at $107 million, an increase of nearly 30 per cent from April. The shooter was also up more than 19 per cent over March – it’s previous best.
The full mobile games revenue chart can be viewed below:
While Honor of Kings continued to do well revenue-wise, a lawsuit has been filed against Tencent regarding ‘inappropriate content’ in the game.
Last month, the Japanese horse racing title Uma Musume: Pretty Derby stormed the mobile revenue chart.
