Top grossing mobile games in China 2024
China’s mobile game market is vibrant. In March 2024, Tencent's Honor of Kings remained the highest-grossing game app in the country, earning about 133 million U.S. dollars in revenue. The second placeholder PUBG Mobile from Tencent was far behind. Honkai: Star Rail, the latest role-playing gacha game developed by miHoYo rosed to the third spot.
The long-term winners: Tencent and NetEase
For many years, Tencent and NetEase have been the most successful Chinese game developers, holding the lion’s share of mobile gaming revenue. The former owns the super app WeChat and an extensive network of entertainment offerings. The mobile gaming business has been one of the profit pillars of Tencent, contributing nearly 30 percent of its annual revenue (555 billion yuan) in 2022. In comparison, NetEase was half the size of Tencent - 75 billion yuan in online game revenue in 2022.
The industry challenger: miHoYo
Having arrived at the gaming scene relatively late in 2011, the Chinese studio miHoYo took eight years to catch global attention. In September 2020, the company grabbed the right timing to launch Genshin Impactduring the pandemic. The role-playing game achieved two billion U.S. dollars of revenue within a year of release and continues to be a lucrative title in various markets. The company announced another blockbuster game Honkai: Star Rail in April 2023.