PUBG Mobile overtakes COD Mobile, Free Fire to become highest earning mobile game in 2020

PUBG Mobile is one of the most popular mobile games around the world. Since its inception in 2018, the game has been blowing up charts in terms of download numbers, revenue, user base, and year-over-year growth. According to a recent report published by Sensor Tower, PUBG Mobile has generated close to 3.5 billion USD in player spending since its launch in 2018.

Knives Out, one of the oldest battle royale games on the mobile platform, is in the 2nd place, followed by Epic Games' Fortnite, Garena Free Fire, and Call of Duty from Activision, respectively.

These battle royales have generated more than 7.5 billion USD in player spending around the world with more than 1.9 billion downloads across Google Play Store and App Store, according to the report.

PUBG Mobile overtakes all the battle royale games

In 2020, PUBG Mobile generated 1.6 billion USD in revenue, which is more than four times the second-ranked battle royal game, Garena Free Fire's 395 million USD. Knives out generated 367 million USD, followed by Epic Games' Fortnite, that earned 293 million USD. This does not include the revenue from China where the game PUBG Mobile is rebranded as Game for Peace.

With the recent ban of PUBG Mobile by the Government of India, the game will lose more than 33 million active subs and a big chunk of their revenue. Knives Out, Rules of Survival were also banned by the Indian Government, which has opened several avenues for Free Fire, Call of Duty to explore.

Removal of Fortnite from App Stores

On 13th August, Fortnite was removed from both Google Play Store and Apple's App Store due to a payment bypass issue. In 2020 alone, it has accumulated 293 million USD in player spending. It also notched about 31 million downloads, with approximately 20 million from Apple’s marketplace, Sensor Tower reported.