Garena Free Fire Posts Record Quarter with $90 Million in Spending, 73 Million New Players

As detailed in our recent look at mobile battle royale game revenue, Garena Free Fire has grown to become one of the top five grossing entries in the burgeoning genre since its launch in late 2017. Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates show that the title scored its best quarter yet in Q1 2019, generating a record $90 million in global player spending and adding an unprecedented 73 million first-time users across the App Store and Google Play.

Big in Brazil, But U.S. Revenue Share Is Growing

Last quarter's total player spending represented an increase of 18 percent from the title's previous quarterly record of $76 million generated in Q4 2018. According to our data, Brazil accounted for the single largest portion of this, at about 31 percent or approximately $27.9 million of the total. Its share of spending was down from about 44 percent in 4Q18.

Players in Thailand contributed the second largest portion of revenue at 11 percent or about $9.9 million. The United States was the title's fourth largest revenue generator for the quarter with close to $8.5 million or about 9.4 percent of all spending. Its share of revenue more than doubled from about 4 percent in 4Q18.

Garena Free Fire was one of two titles among the top five mobile battle royale games that grew their revenue Q/Q in Q1; the other was PUBG Mobile from Tencent, which saw a more substantial increase of close to 63 percent.

No. 1 in Quarter-Over-Quarter Install Growth

Brazil was also the largest source of new installs for the game in Q1, accounting for about 20 percent or 14.6 million of the 73 million players who downloaded it for the first time last quarter. Overall, new installs of Garena Free Fire grew 81 percent year-over-year.

India was the title's second largest market for new players in Q1 at 16 percent or about 11.7 million, followed by Indonesia at 14 percent or roughly 10.2 million first-time downloads. The U.S. was the game's thirteenth largest market by installs at about 1.5 percent of new players added.

While rival PUBG Mobile saw flat growth in new players Q/Q during Q1, Garena Free Fire grew its first-time player base by 23 percent over the fourth quarter of 2018. In fact, it was the only title among the top five in the battle royale genre to grow its new player count over the previous quarter.