Gaming

Tencent Ranks First in Revenue Among Global App Providers in 2019

Apr 13, 2020, 18:40pm2020/04/13 18:40:20 Yupu Li

China’s Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> Holdings Ltd. had the highest revenue among all application providers in 2019, with its major mobile game Kings of Glory gaining wide popularity, according to an industrial report released by App Annie Intelligence.

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Eleven Chinese companies ranked among the top 52 highest-earning apps, surpassing their Japanese counterparts, who had 10, for the first time since 2011. App Annie says the race to attract users between key players of the game industry will become increasingly fierce.

Kings of Glory is a multiplayer online battle arena game developed and published by Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> Games for iOS and Android, exclusively for the Chinese market. The game’s international version was released in 2017 as Arena of Valor, featuring different content.

China’s Everbright Securities Co. Ltd. said in a research note that Kings of Glory, amid the COVID-19 outbreak, witnessed around 120 million daily active users during the 2020 Chinese New Year, earning more than 9.2 billion yuan in January.

Due to the strict quarantine rules, many Chinese confined to their homes turned to online games, boosting Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder />’s gaming business. Between Jan. 16 and 27, a game character skin from Kings of Glory, priced at 6 yuan, was purchased over 1 billion times.

“If I can’t buy clothes in the real world, I can spend more money to buy skins for my characters in the game,” a player surnamed Huo told Pandaily.

While Kings of Glory performed well in the quest for stay-at-home entertainment, it faced allegations of cheating consumer, as users vented their complaints over the skins not appearing as advertised on the official Weibo account of the China Consumer Association.

Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> Game’s revenue rose 10% annually to 114.7 billion yuan in 2019, according to its Q4 report. It profited mainly from three mobile games: Kings of Glory,Game for Peace and PUBG Mobile. Tencent<img decoding="async" class="trade-card__loading" layout="fixed" height="50" width="50" src="https://assets.pandaily.com/uploads/2021/12/loading.png" placeholder /> Games also plans to introduce DnF and LoL mobile in 2020.

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