Tencent’s Honor of Kings raked in royalty levels of cash in the App Store, app analytics platform Sensor Tower reports. The report doesn’t break down exact iOS earnings, but across both the iOS App Store and Android’s Google Play store, the popular gaming title pulled in $264.5 million in player spending — in the month of May alone.
That’s a whole lot of cash, not least for a multiplayer online battle game that’s been around on mobile since 2015. It’s a testament to its longevity, and the fact that App Store success doesn’t rely on the United States these days.
As the report notes, 95% of its revenue comes from China, with 2% coming from Taiwan, and a further 1.7% from Thailand. Interestingly, Honor of Kings isn’t even available in the US in its Chinese form. A localized, somewhat neutered version called Arena of Valor was launched in 2017. However, it largely flopped in the United States. While it’s still available to download, it’s never really made waves stateside. Apple CEO Tim Cook has long said that China is Apple’s future biggest market. Although that’s not yet the case, examples like this make clear that it’s not too far off happening.
Photo: Sensor Tower
What’s big in the States?
For the biggest game in the United States, you’d probably have to go to PUBG Mobile, which raked in 11% of its revenue ($258 million in gross revenue for May) in the United States. Another supremely popular game was Genshin Impact. Roblox and Three Kingdoms Tactics rounded out the rest of the top five money-spinning games on iOS.
Games continue to be a massive money-spinner on iOS. Last year, games accounted for $48 billion of the total App Store revenue versus non-gaming apps which generated $24 billion. In other words, games are worth twice as much to the App Store as non-gaming apps. However, that slowly looks like it’s changing. Another Sensor Tower report, published at the start of this year, suggested that non-gaming apps are carving out a bigger and bigger slice of the App Store pie. That’s largely because of the increased focus on making devices like the iPad productivity devices, rather than devices best used for consuming entertainment.
What’s your current most-played game on iOS? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Sensor Tower
