Comparing the popularity of major mobile esports tournaments in 2024

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Mobile esports in 2024 continued to attract solid audience numbers, with major championships for most games seeing some sort of viewership growth. Of course, there are a few titles that are more popular among viewers, and their world events are among the most successful in all of esports.

It was not just the record-setting Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, the underrated Arena of Valor, the ever-improving Brawl Stars, or popular battle royales like PUBG Mobile and Free Fire that are catching people’s attention; even the major events of smaller games like Battlegrounds Mobile India and Honor of Kings ended among their most successful. With another season finished and all the major World Championships / season-ending events over in mobile esports, here's a look at each mobile esports world event and their top matches by peak concurrent viewers.

Major Mobile Esports Events of 2024 by Game

One of the most popular competitions, not only among mobile games but all of esports, was the M6 World Championship. The latest edition of MLBB's top competition touched 4.13 million Peak Viewers (PV) during the Fnatic ONIC PH versus Team Liquid Indonesia Grand Final. Although it did not break any records in terms of peak concurrent viewership, its viewership grew overall.

MLBB's most coveted event also ended among the most popular esports competitions to ever be livestreamed. It took up the seventh spot on a top-ten leaderboard dominated by entries from this game and League of Legends.

Next comes the Brawl Stars World Finals 2024, which hit 1.1 million PV, making it the battle royale MOBA title's most successful tournament by watch time and peak concurrent viewers. Such a big rise in its audience reach was down to the rise in the number of co-casters, attracting a lot more European viewers as two teams from the region finished on the podium.

A rise in the number of global streamers covering this tournament, which was part of the Supercell SuperFest event, saw languages like English, Italian, Spanish, and French hit massive spikes in their watch times compared to previous iterations. Among livestreaming platforms, Twitch and YouTube remained the preferred options, but TikTok has slowly witnessed its share increasing as it gains a foothold in esports broadcasting outside Asia, its dominant market.

Supercell had two other games joining Brawl Stars when it came to major mobile esports events, starting with the Clash Royale League 2024 World Finals. It is followed by the Clash of Clans World Championship 2024, which ended as the game's second-most popular event ever.

Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, and Clash of Clans are known to have niche player bases that are very loyal. While their viewership numbers might not rise to the level of the best in the mobile esports category, these titles continue to enjoy a solid audience reach, especially on YouTube.

Rounding off the top three places is the PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2024, which had over 985,000 PV during the last round of the Grand Finals. This huge spike has made the event one of the most successful editions of the PMGC to date. It was helped by the success of Dplus KIA, which became the first side to win multiple world titles in this battle royale shooter.

Fourth on our list is the Arena of Valor International Championship 2024, which registered more than 762,583 PV during the Grand Finals between Bacon Time and BanMei Gaming. It ended as the game's most-watched international championship and third-most popular competition ever. This AoV event saw a big rise from the 2023 edition mainly thanks to the rise in interest among Asian audiences. Languages like Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese all saw growth in their peak concurrent viewership figures as all their main representatives performed well.

Sticking with Arena of Valor, its Chinese version Honor of Kings (which itself witnessed a global release in 2024), also enjoyed a satisfying year. The 2024 Honor of Kings Championship garnered 481,212 peak concurrent viewers during the Grand Final between Malaysia's Black Shrew Esport and Dominator Esports from Indonesia.

It finished as the game's most-watched esports event and its second-most popular competition, with Black Shrew Esport making history as the MOBA offering's first non-Chinese world champion. With AoV and HoK providing similar gameplay and now both available to global audiences, it remains to be seen how their developer (Level Infinite) manages their esports itinerary for the new season, and if a singular roadmap will be the way forward.

There's another fan-favorite battle royale shooter, Free Fire, among the more popular entries. Its version of a global championship, Free Fire World Series - Global Finals 2024, notched just over 750,000 PV. The game saw quite a few tweaks in its esports roadmap last year, and when it came to the season-ending tournament, Brazilian side Fluxo's win helped it end among the Free Fire's most-watched international events.

Among the other notable mobile worlds events held in 2024 was the Call of Duty Mobile World Championship. It was held as part of the DreamHack Atlanta gaming festival, and its viewership ranked it as the least-performing of the three singular global championships held so far in the game.

One reason for the lack of audience interest in this CoD: Mobile competition was the exit of a few favorites early in the Playoffs, including Luminosity, GodLike Esports, and Wolves, while inaugural world champion Tribe Gaming did not even make it out of the Swiss Stage. Moreover, even as Elevate became the first team from The Philippines and the Garena (Southeast Asian) region to win a world title in this game, Western audiences lost interest as only one representative made it to the Playoffs.

Then there are the two Pokemon competitions that were part of six events that made up this year's Pokemon World Championships. We also have representation from a mobile turn-based strategy MMORPG in the SWC2024 World Finals — the most anticipated Summoners War tournament.

The Summoners War Cup 2024 touched 31,879 PV and saw a surprise winner as Taiwan's Kelianbao beat Lest, from China, 4:3. However, this fairytale run could not contribute to the event's audience reach, as it finished among the game's least successful World Championship competitions.

The likes of BGMI and Monster Strike also enjoyed successful 2024s, with some of their events finishing among each title's most popular. There were also highly niche titles like Critical Ops that continued to hold their most coveted global championships, with their focus more on community building and satisfaction than specific viewership targets.