Data.ai: TENCENT returns to the top of the list of overseas publishers' revenue, followed by DianDian Interactive and miHoYo.
Tencent returns to the top of the list of overseas publishers' revenue, followed by DianDian Interactive and miHoYo. Rise of Empire and Last Shelter have helped publishers rise in the rankings through increased revenue in the US market during the Christmas holiday. Last War, published by OneFun, has seen a significant increase in overseas downloads and revenue as it launches global advertising campaigns in this issue. The release of the new game, Sword of Xianjian Qixia Zhuan, by ZHONGHANDYOU, has helped the publisher return to the top of the overseas revenue rankings. The rankings of publishers such as Muting Technology, Habby, and SP-Game have also significantly increased.
Zhitong App learned that on January 16th, dataai CN updated the ranking of Chinese game developers and app overseas revenue for December 2023. Tencent (00700) returned to the top of the list of overseas publishers' revenue. DotDot Interactive and miHoYo ranked second and third respectively, making them the three Chinese game publishers with overseas revenue exceeding 100 million US dollars in this period. IM30's Rise of Empire (now renamed Rise of Castles) and Last Shelter rose three places to seventh in the rankings due to the growth in revenue in the US market during the Christmas holiday. Other SLG giants, including IGG, Yotta Games, Topwar Studio, and Lingxi Entertainment, also saw an increase in revenue and rankings.
It is worth mentioning that the SLG sector has welcomed a new challenger. Last War, a 4X marching battle mobile game published by OneFun, launched a global advertising campaign in this period. Overseas downloads and revenue increased by 354% and 428% respectively. Combined with the performance of other growth games under the publisher, such as Build Master, the publisher's revenue increased by 295% YoY, jumping 22 places to 16th. China Mobile Games and Entertainment Group (00302) continued to focus on the RPG genre in the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan regions. The new game, New Swordsman: Sword of Love, helped the publisher return to the top 30 of the overseas revenue ranking. Other publishers with significant ranking improvements include Mutong Technology, Habby, and SP-Game.
Multiple games achieved fruitful results in Christmas holiday operations.
Operating in-game events has become the norm, and how to effectively utilize the holiday period to arrange online activities will be the key to maintaining player engagement and even increasing revenue. DotDot Interactive's 4X marching battle mobile game, Whiteout Survival, updated its "Christmas Celebration" event on December 18, 2023, and achieved a single-day revenue record of over 3 million US dollars during the subsequent Christmas period, making it the highest single-day revenue in the fourth quarter. Habby's ARPG mobile game, Archero, also updated its game icon, levels, and "Christmas Carnival" event in the week before Christmas, adding new content such as heroes, weapon skins, and Christmas-exclusive gameplay. In terms of revenue growth, games in the United States, South Korea, and Japan saw the most significant MoM increases, reaching 23%, 50%, and 22% respectively. PUBG MOBILE, on the other hand, updated its "Frozen Kingdom" mode as early as November and continued to release winter-themed characters, weapon skins, vehicles, and Christmas-themed activities. According to data from data.ai, on December 22nd alone (the day Winter Highness Set was launched), the game's in-app purchase revenue exceeded $4 million. Updating the game before key holidays and launching diverse themed activities and new commercial products during the holiday season has proven to be highly effective by multiple publishers.
Summary of China's mobile games going global in December 2023: 4X strategy war games generally experienced revenue growth. The top 30 products on this month's list of Chinese mobile games going global collectively generated $700 million in overseas markets, with MoM growth remaining stable. Whiteout Survival and PUBG MOBILE saw significant increases in revenue during the Christmas period, taking the top two spots on the list of overseas revenue. MiHoYo's RPG mobile games Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail secured the 3rd and 4th positions respectively. Both games completed major version updates in December (Genshin Impact's version 4.3 "Rosaria and the Gun", Honkai: Star Rail's version 1.6 "The Crown of the Mediocre and the Divine"), resulting in significant revenue growth during that week.
4X strategy war games generally saw an improvement in their revenue rankings this month. The most outstanding performers in this category include Last War and Three Kingdoms Tactics. The former saw a surge in downloads and revenue during an active advertising campaign, successfully ranking 13th on the list of overseas mobile game revenue. The latter benefited mainly from gameplay and hero updates during the "Battle in All Seasons" season in the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan servers. Other 4X strategy war games that saw a significant rise in rankings include Puzzles & Survival, Lords Mobile, Last Shelter, and Mafia City.
In the RPG category, Habby's grass-cutting ARPG mobile game Survivor!.io maintained a higher level of revenue after the introduction of the new agent, Master Yang. With the successive launch of the Snow Country Ice Lantern event, Winter Lucky Treasure event, and SpongeBob SquarePants 2nd collaboration event, the game's revenue continued to grow by 36% MoM in December. Azur Lane continues to rebound in revenue by conducting periodic limited-time events (the current event is called "Star Sea Pursuit") and salvaging new ships, once again returning to the top thirty in the revenue rankings.
