PUBG 2024 esports driven by APAC viewership, double the numbers of EMEA and America

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For 2024, PUBG: Battlegrounds is looking stronger than ever before in recent years. Last year, the esports scene for the Battle Royale game saw the return of the PUBG Global Series, launching major international tournaments back onto the esports discipline’s calendar. New season kicked off with the Split 1 regional events, and a chance for non-franchised teams to qualify for the major PGS events.

Split 1 covers 10 regional leagues for PUBG mobile, from the Americas to East Asia. Critically, the Chinese regional league does not start until April 20, and we cannot track Chinese live-streaming platforms’ viewership statistics due to incomplete and unreliable data: therefore, we will not be considering the regional Chinese event throughout this article.

The first regional events of the year show promise compared to last year. The esports scene for PUBG: Battlegrounds is growing, and so is the viewership for the regional events that see teams battle towards qualification for major events. 

In total, 9 regional leagues generated 3.49M Hours Watched for the title. The most popular of all 9 events was the PUBG Global Series APAC Qualifiers Phase 1, which recorded 67K Peak Viewers. Compared to EMEA and the Americas, the Asian regional scene is much more divided for PUBG: APAC region features dedicated regional leagues for Thailand, Vietnam, Pacific, Japan, South Korea, and more. 

These smaller regional leagues act as a sort of qualifier for the APAC Qualifiers, which brings the best teams of the entire region together to battle it out for spots at this year’s major international LAN events. The Asian regional events also make up $250,000 of the total $350,000 prize pool offered for all Split 1 events, considerably more than the EMEA and Americas regions.

The APAC tournament was the most popular of the tournaments thanks to the collaboration of various regional scenes to bring their best teams and competition to this event. 

APAC Qualifiers generated 67K PV for its final day matches, but many of the all the event’s top 5 rounds received at least 60K live concurrent viewers. The previous PUBG Global Series 2023 Phase 2 Apac Qualifier received 63.3K PV, almost 4K viewers fewer than this year’s, but also the most popular round of the event was the only round to receive above 60K concurrent viewers. This year’s APAC Qualifiers not only reached a higher peak, but enjoyed a healthier spread of viewership throughout its playoffs stage.

The APAC Qualifiers in 2024 also enjoyed a significant boost to its average viewership compared to the previous Split. This was largely thanks to the event’s most popular language: Vietnamese. The Vietnamese-speaking audience for these esports events has grown significantly compared to last year, and although other regional Asian audiences have shrunk slightly compared to 2023, the tremendous growth of the Vietnamese audience has nullified this. 

This event was also the first PUBG tournament of 2024 to reach 1M Hours Watched. It was also the third ever PUBG Global Series event to reach 1M hours of watch time, and the other two tournaments were both major international LAN events: meaning this event was the first regional league for the official esports circuit to reach this milestone.

Most popular Split 1 regional events for the PUBG 2024 season, by Hours Watched & Peak Viewers

The popularity of the combined APAC region is immediately apparent when comparing the viewership for each league directly. The Americas and EMEA regions are roughly even in terms of viewership, although the EMEA region enjoyed a slightly higher peak at 34.9K PV. 

The PUBG Weekly Series 2024: Korea Phase 1 was the second-most-watched Asian regional event behind only the Vietnamese PUBG Vietnam Series 2024 Phase 1. The Korean event garnered 345.8K Hours Watched, but this audience did not contribute to the APAC Qualifiers viewership. The Korean regional teams are able to qualify directly for PGS major events in their own regional league, unlike all other Asian regional events that qualify only to the APAC Qualfiers. 

The APAC region continues to be the strongest region for PUBG: Battlegrounds esports viewership. The APAC Qualifiers event received roughly double the peak concurrent viewership of its EMEA and Americas competitors, and this would have gone even higher if Korean teams were competing at the event. 

Interestingly, the PUBG Thailand Championship 2024 Phase 1 received only 3K PV for its first event of the year. Thai-speaking audiences were one of the most critical ones for the recent APAC Qualifiers event, and Thai-language broadcasts reached a much higher peak during this event than the regional Thai league itself. These Thai fans are clearly willing to tune into the major APAC events, but not as keen to tune into their own regional league. 

Compared to 2023, viewership is slightly on the rise for many regions within PUBG: Battlegrounds. Last year’s Phase 1 international event received 134.8K PV, and this year may be able to go even higher. PUBG was generally at its most popular around 2018 or 2019, but the esports scene for the game has made great strides to move past the game’s initial popularity and build up a successful esports scene from the ground up. The remainder of the 2024 esports scene for PUBG promises to be an exciting year for the discipline, and hopefully PUBG will be able to reach its highest peak viewership since its 2018 glory days.