PMGC 2023 records highest peak viewership since inaugural season
The PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2023 recently came to an end in Istanbul. The initial stages of the event were held in Malaysia, but the event moved to Turkey for its Grand Finals. 16 teams advanced from the event's League stage and competed in an 18-round Finals match to determine an ultimate victor. The event received significant viewership from various platforms and became the most popular event in the series since the inaugural Season 0 Championship.
Mongolian team IHC ESPORTS became the champions with 142 points accumulated, just ahead of rivals Stalwart Esports who finished 4 points behind. The tournament was close the whole way through, and now world champions IHC ESPORTS were almost eliminated from the Group Stage of the event. They finished 10th in Group Yellow with 128 points, only 5 points ahead of the elimination zone for their group. The Mongolian roster seized the chance to become world champions and established themselves as the top organisation of 2023 for PUBG Mobile.
The players of three teams of the top 4 finishers, IHC ESPORTS, Stalwart Esports, and 4Merical Vibes, all hailed from the same country: Mongolia is a flourishing region for esports at the moment, especially mobile gaming esports, where the country is producing some of the top teams in various disciplines.
The Grand Finals stage of the event, which took place between December 8 and 10, collected 8.3M+ Hours Watched, bringing the total watch time up to 31.3M HW. Watch time for the event is up compared to previous years, and 2023 marked the most-watched global championship for the esports discipline since 2020.
Round 16 of the Finals was the most popular Round of the event, recording over 980.1K Peak Viewers. A large portion of viewership came from Indonesian-speaking audiences, but other languages enjoyed significantly high peak viewership too. Mongolian recorded a much higher peak viewership compared to the championship of 2022, boosted by the strong performance of Mongolian-based teams at the event.
Turkish-language viewership was one of the few to record a lower peak viewership compared to 2022. The region hosted the Grand Finals of the Global Championship and lost a part of its demographic for live streams in the process.
Compared to other PUBG Mobile Global Championship events, the 2023 world championship-deciding event was the second-most-popular iteration in its history. The 2023 edition made strong usage of various live streaming platforms, accumulating its viewership from four main sources. YouTube is, as always, a strong contender for the biggest live streaming platform with mobile gaming audiences, but TikTok was especially important for this event’s viewership.
Although TikTok viewership was much lower than YouTube Live’s on average throughout the event, it reached a much higher comparative peak. YouTube Live’s viewership rose by 155.9% from average concurrent viewership to peak concurrent viewership, whereas TikTok’s rose by over 243.3%. Although the platform did not receive as much watch time as YouTube Live during the earlier stages of the event, it helped contribute significantly to the event’s peak viewership.
The inaugural PUBG Season 0 championship is notably ahead of the other events, thanks to being hosted on NimoTV. The tournament was supported by Drops and community support, but also through being embedded on NimoTV’s front page. This embed helped the event reach a ridiculous 3.8M concurrent viewers figure, but the current 980.1K PV figure recorded at the 2023 event is more representative of the event’s true viewership power and audience size.
The PMGC 2023 event did have viewer Drops available to help boost viewership too. The event benefited from in-game integration, where players could support their favourite teams and claim cosmetic items for their profile by convincing friends to watch the broadcast. Players could also obtain in-game cosmetic items by watching official broadcasts during the Grand Finals, which highlights the advantage that the PMGC hosts official broadcasts for many platforms and a wide variety of the most popular languages: like English, Indonesian, Turkish, Arabic, and many many more.
The PMGC event cemented it: PUBG Mobile is the second-most popular mobile gaming esports discipline of 2023. It also became the most popular Battle Royale mobile game of the year, falling only behind Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, a MOBA title. ML:BB is wildly popular and stands out a cut above the rest of the other mobile gaming esports titles, but PUBG Mobile is beginning to bridge the gap.
The only other Battle Royale title listed in this top 5 ranking is Free Fire. Although both games are Battle Royale titles, Free Fire and PUBG Mobile are not exactly rivals. Free Fire is extremely popular in select regions, mainly Brazil and Vietnam, from which PUBG Mobile does not receive a significant portion of its viewership. While both of these esports titles are competing for the attention of fans, they currently operate in separate spheres in terms of how they generate viewership.
The PUBG Mobile Global Championship 2023 is a growing force within the mobile gaming esports scene. This part of esports has the potential to be wildly popular, as seen with ML:BB, the events just need to build up a loyal and large fanbase for themselves. The PUBG Mobile championships have been increasing in peak viewership since the 2021 Finals, and it became one of the most popular mobile gaming esports options for fans to spectate in 2023. PUBG Mobile is currently the most popular Battle Royale mobile gaming esports discipline in the world, but time will tell if it will be able to compete with the huge viewership of the MOBA rivals in its scene.
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