Fortnite Grossed Nearly Half a Billion Dollars Last Year on iOS

Epic Games ended 2018 on an extremely high note—thanks in no small part to the role the mobile version of its mega-hit Fortnite played in its banner year. The game arrived on iOS with a bang in March, raking in more than $10 million from players, and grew that to nearly $69 million in December, its best month yet according to Sensor Tower's Store Intelligence estimates.

December's revenue marked a month-over-month increase of 83 percent compared to November and was 16 percent higher than its previous best month of July when the game grossed an estimated $59.3 million. All told, the game grossed more than $455 million during 2018 on Apple's App Store, on top of the revenue it took in on Android after its publisher opted to make an end run around Google Play. On average, players spent about $1.6 million per day in the game between launch and December 31.

New installs of Fortnite on iOS last month were also way up over November, climbing 59 percent month-over-month to more than 5.2 million. With December's figures, Fortnite has reached 82.6 million all-time downloads on Apple's platform.

In the mobile battle royale arena, Fortnite ended the year squarely ahead of its best-known rival, PUBG Mobile. That title, developed by China's Tencent, saw nearly $100 million in worldwide iOS player spending during 2018—but that was just 22 percent of Fortnite's total for the year.