PUBG Mobile is the highest grossing mobile game of 2021 so far

PUBG
PUBG (Image credit: Android Central)

What you need to know

  • PUBG Mobile is the mobile port of the popular battle royale game, in which players have to compete to be the last man standing.
  • According to a new report, PUBG Mobile is the highest grossing mobile game so far this year, at $832 million in player spending.
  • The next-highest games on the list are Honor of Kings and Genshin Impact.

PUBG Mobile was the highest-grossing mobile game for the first half of 2021, according to a recent report, grossing over three-quarters of a billion dollars just in the last six months. If these numbers are accurate, it's the most successful game out there by a considerable margin.

The report comes from Safe Betting Sites, which lists the income for PUBG Mobile as being around $832 million from January to June 2021. The next-highest-grossing game was Honor of Kings, which grossed around $664 million, then Genshin Impact at $576 million, and none of the other games in the report grossed over $500 million.

The report also tracks user spending across quarters, and it's increased exponentially from Q4 2020 to Q1 2021. Players have regularly spent more than $200 million on PUBG Mobile every month of 2021.

Rex Pascual, the esports editor for Safe Betting Sites, says ""The free-to-play, mobile version model is now adopted by numerous big titles but the PUBG franchise was one of the first major titles to do so. Proof of its success is that despite equally large rivals such as the Call of Duty franchise recently adopting the same model, PUBG Mobile remains on top of many gaming charts as shown by the data from H1."

PUBG Mobile is one of our favorite Android games, and as Pascual pointed out, it's being followed by several other games in the same genre, including Fortnite and Call of Duty. The series' undeniable success on mobile is probably why a mobile-only title called PUBG: New State is coming soon, having held its first alpha tests a few weeks ago.

Rachel Kaser

Rachel Kaser is an Android Central gaming contributor, who's been writing since 2013 and gaming since the age of five. She's covered everything from gaming news, reviews, and analysis -- if it exists in gaming, she knows about it. She also contributes to Future's other sites, iMore and Windows Central. If you want to hear her opinions on games, pop culture, tech, and everything in between, follow her on Twitter @rachelkaser