PUBG Global Championship 2024 becomes the series’ most popular event, fueled by Vietnamese viewership
The PUBG: Battlegrounds esports season came to a thrilling conclusion this past weekend in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The PUBG Global Championship 2024, the season’s finale, set a new benchmark by becoming the most-watched event in the series’ history. This record-breaking achievement marked the perfect end to a remarkable year for PUBG esports, with performance far surpassing that of 2023.
Kuala Lumpur marked the final stop in the long and action-packed PUBG: Battlegrounds esports season. This year, the game’s top competitions were hosted by several Asian countries, including China, South Korea, and Thailand. In the summer, teams also gathered in Riyadh for the massive Esports World Cup 2024.
Twisted Minds were widely considered as the main favorites going into the event, having had a phenomenal season, winning three out of four PUBG Global Series tournaments. However, despite their incredible consistency throughout the season, it wasn't enough for the biggest tournament of the year. Twisted Minds finished in eighth place, while all the glory went to the Vietnamese team, The Expendables.
The excitement remained high even inl the very last rounds of the tournament, with four teams being in contention for the title. The difference between first and second-third place was a mere two points! In the end, The Expendables emerged as champions, claiming their first major title. Previously, the team had never finished higher than sixth place at a large event.
The Expendables' fantastic performance didn't go unnoticed by Vietnamese viewers: compared to the previous World Championship, their engagement saw a significant increase. It was their support that served as the main driving factor behind the event’s record-breaking viewership, making it the most-watched edition in PGC series’ history.
Note: We didn’t include data from Chinese streaming platforms, as they don’t publicly share viewer numbers. Instead, these platforms rely on a metric called the Heat Index, which combines various indicators of viewer engagement, including reactions, chat activity and more.
The incredibly intense battle in the Grand Final helped push the tournament past 400,000 concurrent viewers during the final two rounds. The viewer count steadily increased in the decisive rounds, and had the format included a few more rounds, the peak would have certainly been even higher.
Undoubtedly, the key driver behind the high viewership was the significant rise in engagement from Vietnamese viewers compared to last year's tournament. This demographic was by far the largest at the event, with their numbers increasing by over 60%, reaching more than 50,000 Average Viewers. The Vietnamese audience was more than three times the size of any other.
The thrilling final helped the tournament set a new record for concurrent viewership in the series. But it wasn’t just the drama of the final that drove this: other major PUBG: Battlegrounds events of 2024 also saw higher average viewership compared to the previous year.
Overall, this season of PUBG Battlegrounds has been far more successful in terms of viewer metrics than the last. Engagement grew across all key PUBG esports demographics, with a particularly notable rise in viewers from Vietnam, now the undisputed leading audience for the esport.
The PUBG esports season concludes on a positive note, with 2024 surpassing 2023 in all major viewership metrics, even despite a slightly lower total broadcast time. Along with the rise in engagement from Vietnamese viewers, another important factor behind the growth was the expanded coverage on new streaming platforms. While YouTube remains the dominant platform for PUBG tournaments, its share has now dropped below 50%. The increased variety of channels and platforms has clearly had a positive impact on the game.
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