PUBG Mobile falls one spot in highest-earning mobile games rankings in 2020 (Q3) post India ban

PUBG Mobile, and the localised version for China, Game for Peace, has slipped to second place in the top-grossing games worldwide list in Quarter 3 for 2020, as per a Sensor Tower study. Honor of Kings reclaimed first place after being overtaken in Q2 by PUBG Mobile, and along with its international version, Arena of Valor, grew by 65% year on year.

Interestingly, Chinese multinational technology conglomerate Tencent owns both Arena of Valor/Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile/Game for Peace.

PUBG Mobile was the top-grossing title in the world during Q2 this year, generating close to $621 million in this quarter. That was down 8% from Q1, when it accumulated $674.5 million. PUBG Mobile's peak came in March, just before the end of lockdown in China, at approximately $270 million.

A rise in worldwide consumer spending on games like PUBG Mobile

The third quarter of the year also saw significant growth for mobile games, climbing 26.7 percent year on year to reach $20.9 billion in worldwide consumer spending on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

App Store generated more than half of that revenue, with $12.4 billion from in-game spending, up 24 percent year on year from the third quarter of 2019. Play Store generated $8.5 billion in gross revenue, with a growth of 30.8 percent year on year over the same quarter, Sensor Tower added.

Pokemon Go took third place in the top-grossing games list, with 33 percent year on year growth compared to the third quarter of 2019. This title celebrated its fourth anniversary by crossing $3.6 billion in lifetime player spendings.

Fourth-ranked Coin Master's consumer spending doubled compared to the same quarter last year, while Roblox, ranked fifth, saw a 119% growth rate year on year. In the first half of 2020, it passed $1.5 billion in lifetime revenue and has almost notched up $2 billion as of now.

The top five highest-grossing titles earned more than $2.4 billion, or 12 percent, of all money spent by consumers on mobile games last quarter, similar to the same period the previous year, when the top five games garnered $1.9 billion, or 12 percent, of the $16.4 billion total, as per the report.