Tencent Made More Money From Games in 2021 Than Sony, Microsoft & Nintendo

Well, it’s an actual fact now. The Chinese game publisher is making way more money than even the more known publishers out there. We’re talking about Tencent of course, the giant company behind various popular gaming titles such as PUBG.

If you’re only reading news from the mainstream western media, you’ve probably never heard about Tencent before, and you might (incorrectly) think that a Chinese company can’t make more money than Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

But you would be wrong because this Chinese giant is making way more money than the more popular and known game publishers.

That’s because according to analyst Daniel Ahmad (of Niko Partners) for the year 2021, Tencent has earned a record of $32.38 billion in revenue from their video games, which is an increase of 9.9% more from the previous year (2020).

With the Asian giant owning popular games such as PUBG Mobile, Brawl Stars, and Clash of Clans, it’s no wonder that they earned so much more last year since the games have gained even more active players than before.

Tencent reported total gaming revenue of $32.38 billion in 2021, up 9.9% YoY.

Growth primarily driven by increases in mobile game revenue and overseas game revenue.

PUBG Mobile, Valorant, Brawl Stars and Clash of Clans mentioned as key contributors overseas. pic.twitter.com/0cyAyjPJez

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) March 23, 2022

Sony managed to gain the no. 2 spot on the podium with a revenue total for the year 2021 of $24.87 billion.

Microsoft gained the 3rd spot with sales amounting to $16.28 for 2021.

In fourth place came Nintendo, with “just” $15.3 billion in revenue earned in the last year.

You might be surprised to know that most of the revenue in the gaming industry is actually coming from mobile video games. That’s because mobile players (Android and iOS) usually spend way more on in-game boosts, cosmetics, and items compared to PC and Console gamers.

Since the beginning of the year 2022, gamers spent a cool $22 billion according to research from Data.ai and reported by Pocketgamer.biz. And that’s only in the first 3 months of the year, we can only imagine that the numbers will grow even more by the end of the year.

The crazy thing is that this is an absolute record in terms of mobile game revenue in the first quarter of a year.

According to research done by SensorTower in 2021 players spent the most money on PUBG Mobile which was over $2.8 billion, on second place (a tie) came in Honor of Kings (another game published by Tencent) with again $2.8 billion spent by players.

In the third place, gamers spent $1.8 billion on Genshin Impact, and also $1.3 billion on Roblox.