MPL in 2021 — how successful were the different regions of the league?

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The regular season of the pro league for mobile game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang has come to an end. Some regions have managed to set new records, and some have performed worse than a year ago. In the new article, Esports Charts will compare the performance of recent tournaments and talk about the viewership of the league.

Comparison of recent MPL seasons

Esports scene of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang has expanded

This split saw a significant expansion of MPL. New leagues were launched in Brazil and Cambodia, and they were quite successful, performing better than the Singapore division, which enjoys standalone existence for two seasons already (before this, it was merged with Malaysia).

Of the two new regions, Cambodia attracted more viewers than Brazil, as the mobile MOBA market is still unexplored territory for the latter. In addition, Cambodia overtook Singapore by seven times in terms of Hours Watched, which is an excellent result for a brand-new tournament.

Statistics of Singapore league continue to plummet

Singapore was overtaken by everyone else. The combined Malay-Singaporean tournaments were held for six seasons, but after the split, it became clear that Singapore itself was not doing very well.

On the contrary, Malaysia became part of the top 3 regions of the MPL, improving Hours Watched by 40% and Peak Viewers by 24% compared to MPL MY Season 7. This can be explained by the fact that until now, Malaysian teams used to play versus unpopular teams from Singapore. Now that the region has seceded, the fans have the opportunity to follow their favorites alone, without waiting their time on Singaporean rosters.

MPL in Malaysia is gaining momentum

In the eighth season, Malaysia broke the viewership record. The league's Hours Watched increased by 29% (5.2M), while the Peak Viewers increased by 24% (137K viewers). This is the all-time best result for Malaysia – including taking into account the tournaments that were held together with Singapore.

The Philippines: an unexpected drop

Although the Philippines is the second most popular region in the MPL, the local league's performance has dropped dramatically from the previous season, with Hours Watched and Peak Viewers being down 20% and 58%, respectively.

The reason for such a dynamic is that the Philippines has chosen bad dates for the playoffs. The final matches took place on October 24, which is the same day the finals were held in Indonesia – and the latter is much more popular among the audience.

During the last season, the Filipino final took place after the Indonesian one, and there was also a broadcast in Indonesian for MPL PH Season 7. The lack of Indonesian broadcast in the eighth season was why part of the audience ignored the event.

Indonesia is consistently #1 in the discipline

MPL Indonesia is the very first and also the most successful region of the discipline. Indonesia's indicators are showing constant growth from season to season, and the tournaments in the region are comparable in popularity to (and sometimes even surpass) the large international events in disciplines widespread in the West – such as CS: GO, Valorant, Dota 2, etc.

Indonesia's results are comparable to those of traditional esports – and even surpass some of the PC disciplines

The finale of Season 8 was watched by 2.3M Peak Viewers, which is 30% more as compared to Season 7. Hours Watched also increased by 42%, although Season 8 was only 3 hours longer on air than the previous one. One of the key hallmarks of Season 8's success is the Average Viewership, which has grown by 40% since Season 7.

The M3 World Championship will be the last tournament of the year for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang esports scene. It will bring together the discipline’s best teams: winners and finalists of MPL splits, as well as the best teams from regional qualifiers that lack their own leagues. The exact date of the tournament will be announced later.

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