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PUBG Mobile has reached a new milestone, crossing $9 billion in total consumer spending. According to Sensor Tower, App Store and Google Play users have installed PUBG Mobile 1.1 billion times and spent $5.2 million per day on average.
PUBG Mobile launched in March 2018, just a year after its PC beta launched on Steam. PUBG Mobile benefited from being the first major PC-based battle royale to make the jump to the platform. Fortnite launched on iOS about two weeks later. Of course, Fortnite is no longer on the App Store. This probably benefitted the Tencent, Krafton, and Level Infinite published title. Of course it still has healthy competition from mobile native battle royales such as Free Fire.
However, the recent downturn in the mobile games market impacted PUBG Mobile. In the first three quarters of 2022, players downloaded PUBG Mobile 104.4 million times and spending totaled $1.6 billion. Both of these metrics fell about 27% compared to the same period in 2021 (142 million and $2.2 billion respectively) according to Sensor Tower.
Sensor Tower’s analysis does not include BattleGrounds Mobile India (BGMI) — the India-only version of PUBG Mobile. This is likely due the various governmental bans that have stiffled the app’s growth and explains why it is not currently available to download. BGMI was extremely popular in India, reaching 100 million registered users just before the app was banned.
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