PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2021 — how far is the West behind in views?

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PUBG Mobile esports season is coming to an end. On December 24, the regional Global Championship leagues for the West and East ended, and the results of them determined all the participants in the last stage of the World Championship. In a new Esports Charts article, we analyze the statistics of the two events and tell you how far Europe/America are behind Asia in terms of views.

Twenty teams each played in each division, and the divisions had the same prize pool — $1.2 million. The broadcasts were held on YouTube and Facebook, as these two platforms are popular for mobile gameplay. The main season (PMPL, PMCO) was also broadcast on NimoTV, but without the league finals. Developers increased viewership due to in-game gifts. Players received special items and viewership achievements for watching broadcasts, and spectators could watch the matches right in the game.

The winners of the East region were Koreans from Damwon Gaming, known for their achievements in League of Legends. In the West region, the victory went to the team Next Rüya Esports from Turkey.

PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2021 Grand Finals participants  

Nine teams from the East division made it to the final event: DAMWON Gaming, D'Xavier, Stalwart Esports, Nova Esports, Nigma Galaxy, The Infinity, Six Two Eight, 4Rivals and Team Secret. In the West division teams such as Next Rüya Esports, Natus Vincere, Furious Gaming, Alpha7 Esports, S2G Esports and Fenerbahçe Esports will compete.

We compared the West and East qualifiers. Despite the fact that the events had almost the same duration, the gap in statistics is huge. The East League accumulated 14 million Hours Watched and 386K Peak Viewers. At the same time, the West division generated 1.8 million Hours Watched and drew 71K Peak Viewers.

The reason for these results is mostly in the popularity of the game in different regions. At the moment, mobile esports in the West is only picking up momentum, while in Asia major competitions regularly attract millions of viewers.

It should be noted that the results of the 2021 Global Championship qualifiers were far from the largest online audience compared with other local events in the discipline in 2021. The PMPL regional leagues in both America and Asia attracted twice as many viewers. Moreover, the Indonesian PMPL drew 566K Peak Viewers (46% more than the PMGC 2021 League East had).  

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PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2021 Grand Finals will kick off on January 21-23, 2022. The tournament will feature 16 teams — nine from the East League Finals, six from the West League Finals and the winner of the Battlegrounds Mobile India Series 2021. The tournament prize pool will be $3.4 million (one and a half times more than the PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 had).

According to Tencent officials, the tournament will be held in a mixed format. Some teams will come to compete in LAN (the tournament location is not known yet).

PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 drew 3.8 million Peak Viewers. The tournament has become one of the most popular in the history of esports, and this result will be quite difficult to surpass. However, at the Grand Finals there will be quite a few well-known teams — NAVI, Damwon Gaming, Team Secret, Nigma, S2G. In addition to the teams, in-game views also affect the statistics: PUBG Mobile tournaments can be watched directly in the game, which makes the audience even larger. Earlier, a broadcast of a major discipline tournament automatically launched in the player's lobby, which added even more views. But now all streams are available in a separate tab. Will the new international competition set a new record? We'll see in January.

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