Garena’s Free Fire game tops Tencent’s PUBG Mobile for the first time in the US

In the US, Garena’s mobile shooting game Free Fire has overtaken Tencent’s PUBG Mobile as the top battle royale game by player spending in the first quarter of 2021, generating about US$100 million in revenue against US$68 million for PUBG, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Photo credit: PUBG

Free Fire’s US revenue was 4.5x higher compared to the first quarter last year, while PUBG Mobile logged just a 9% uptick. Call of Duty: Mobile, developed by Tencent’s Timi Studios and Activision, trails behind with US$62 million in revenue.

PUBG Mobile, however, still leads the battle royale space globally. Combined with its Chinese adaptation, Game For Peace, it garnered US$744.4 million in Q1. Free Fire reached US$255 million and Call of Duty: Mobile garnered US$182 million.

The removal of Epic Games’ Fortnite from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store in August 2020 helped these contenders along. The publisher was banned after introducing its own in-app payment system, Fortnite Mega Drop, which violated the stores’ guidelines. The battle royale market accumulated US$1.3 billion in Q1, making up 86.7% of the global mobile shooter market revenue.

Launched in 2017, Free Fire is published by game developer Garena, a unit of Singapore-based tech giant Sea Group, and quickly grew its user base in Brazil and India. Despite having lower graphics quality and a less realistic feel compared to PUBG, the game is said to be more compatible with smartphones.

For years, Garena has been Sea Group’s money-making engine. Gaming revenues grew by 111.1% year on year during Q4 2020, reaching US$1 billion, according to its latest earnings report. Garena’s quarterly active users increased by 72.1% year on year to 610.6 million, with 12% of that figure being paying customers.

For the full year of 2021, Sea Group expects bookings for Garena to be around US$4.4 billion, representing 38% year-on-year growth.

This report was first published on KrAsia.