While PUBG Mobile may be currently banned in India, it looks like its developer, Tencent will still be raking in money. According to a report by Sensor Tower, the game generated over $500 Million in revenue in just over the past two months. In fact, the game is estimated to have earned over $3.5 Billion in player spending over its lifetme. This amount includes the combined revenue for the global version of PUBG Mobile as well as its Chinese-version, Game For Peace. Sensor Tower’s report notes that PUBG Mobile was the top grossing battle royale game world wide ahead of Garena Free Fire, Knives Out, Fortnite and Call of Duty: Mobile.
The report also acknowledges the fact that India was the game’s largest market in terms of installs as of September 2, 2020 with 185.5 million downloads. However, the ban put in place by the Indian government might change all that. Regardless, it doesn’t seem like the ban will have too much of an impact for Tencent in terms of revenue. China remains the top market for Tencent with Game For Peace generating 53% of the game’s global revenue. The US comes in at second place with 13.6% while Japan accounts for 5.5%. Sensor Tower also notes that the App Store accounts for 80% of all revenue while Google Play makes up 20 percent.
A few days ago, PUBG Corp, the South Korean company responsible for publishing the PC and console version of the game, stated that it would be severing its ties with Tencent for PUBG Mobile in India. It also announced that it intends to make sure that the game’s data is stored locally and that it will run its operations from within India.