Tencent's Honor of Kings Led Mobile Game Revenue in 2018 with Almost $2 Billion Grossed

Despite having launched in 2015, Tencent's mobile MOBA title Honor of Kings only saw its momentum increase in 2018. Known in the West as Arena of Valor, the app grossed more than $1.93 billion in the course of last year, not including revenue from third-party Android stores in China and elsewhere, cementing it as the world's top earning mobile game for the year. This marked a 20 percent increase in player spending over 2017's $1.61 billion and was the title's biggest year yet, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data.

All told, player spending in Honor of Kings averaged close to $5.3 million per day during 2018, with nearly 95 percent of that coming from iOS users in China. Other international versions of the game accounted for 1.7 percent of revenue at most (that was Thailand's share) and less than 1 percent in the United States, where an estimated $5.7 million was spent in Arena of Valor.

Honor of Kings led a legion of mobile games from Asia that dominated global revenue for the category. Sensor Tower data reveals that, of the top 100 grossing games on mobile in 2018, 62 were developed in Asia and accounted for 66 percent of the revenue generated. This was up from 60 of the top 100 grossing games in 2017, which generated 63 percent of revenue among them.

Global gross revenue generated by Honor of Kings outside of third-party Android stores stands at more than $4.2 billion to date.