CODM World Championship 2025: Qing Jiu Club brings trophy back to China
The Call of Duty: Mobile World Championship 2025, one of the most prominent events in the mobile gaming space, concluded on November 9. Qing Jiu Club's win marked the second time a Chinese side clinched the shooter's biggest prize, with the event peaking at just over 19,000 concurrent viewers outside mainland China.
The fourth edition of the COD Mobile World Championship was held at the Spodek Arena in Katowice, Poland. The world's 16 best teams fought for international glory and a share of the $850,000 prize pool. Three days of intense battles culminated in China's Qing Jiu Club emerging as the champion, taking home $350,000 as a result.
The Grand Final between Qing Jiu Club and Elevate was the tournament's most popular match, reaching 19,138 Peak Viewers (PV). It was a repeat of the 2024 finals, which Elevate, the American esports organization with an all-Filipino roster, won 4:0. This time around, however, Qing Jiu Club ensured to keep its calm in a see-saw battle to avenge that defeat and emerge as the newest world champion with a 4:3 win.
Among all events in the COD Mobile World Championship series, the 2025 iteration's viewership numbers may not put it in the top five, although there are reasons for that. It comes in the eighth spot by peak live viewers and watch time.
A major reason that this year's biggest Call of Duty: Mobile event did not do as well as the previous iterations was the clash with more prominent competitions. Its Grand Final was held on the same day as the finals of the 2025 League of Legends World Championship, with renowned tournaments like the BLAST Slam IV, IEM Chengdu 2025 and King Pro League Grand Finals 2025 ending on the same weekend.
This meant that the number of channels covering the CODM World Championship 2025 fell from 70 in 2024 to 31 this time around. Its livestreams on TikTok were also a big miss, as the video-sharing app's growing influence in SEA would have meant more eyeballs from this region's audiences.
The absence of popular sides like Luminosity and GodLike Esports was also a miss, as they tend to bring their own fans to such events. The former disbanded in early 2024, while the latter's roster had to merge with players of fellow Indian team S8UL. They formed a makeshift team, Newgen Ninjas, after visa issues meant not all players from both organizations could travel on time.
The CODM World Championship 2025 showed yet again that niche esports titles will have a tough time when clashing with bigger events. However, there is no doubt that Call of Duty: Mobile has found a stable space for itself on the annual calendar. The organizers, ESL Faceit Group and Activision, will no doubt look at all these factors and look to bring even more fun and quality tournaments next year.
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