The developers behind Call of Duty Mobile continue to rack in money during the pandemic, with 2020 being a particularly successful year for the studio. TiMi Studios is looking to expand its global audience in order to maintain financial success in the mobile market.
TiMi Studios is the development studio behind Call of Duty Mobile, Pokemon Unite, Arena of Valor, Speed Drifters, Honor of Kings, and more and according to recent reports, the team had a banner year in 2020. TiMi Studios made $10 billion in revenue in 2020, which makes it the "world's largest developer" for a single studio.
TiMi Studios alone raked in $10 billion in 2020 without relying on Tencent's other internal studios such as Lightspeed & Quantum Studios. Tencent plans to eventually bring in half of its game revenue from overseas markets, but this figure is currently at 23% for the most recent quarter. Though this number continues to increase from one quarter to another thanks to the popularity of Call of Duty Mobile, Tencent and TiMi still have a long way to go to reach the numbers they're looking for. While TiMi Studios was able to bring in $10 billion of its own through games like Call of Duty Mobile and Honor of Kings, Tencent reported total annual revenue of over $73 billion in 2020.
Tencent encompasses a vast array of studios, including TiMi Studios which is a big contributor to the financial success the conglomerate is experiencing thanks to the booming mobile gaming market. Companies such as Activision Blizzard bring in more money annually than TiMi Studios, but for a single studio, TiMi is the "world's largest developer." TiMi Studios may be looking to expand beyond mobile games into the AAA gaming space in order to effectively compete against the biggest studios in the world. Tencent reported 156.1 billion yuan in overall online game revenue for 2020, with TiMi contributing a whopping 40%. Roughly 210 million mobile gamers play Call of Duty Mobile actively, while around 30 million are playing daily and contributing to TiMi's success.
Tencent is expanding into the gaming market at a historic pace with its development studios continuing to make tons of revenue from online and mobile gaming. While TiMi Studios might not seem like a large developer since it only really started to expand in 2016, $10 billion in revenue in one year is nothing to sneeze at. With TiMi accounting for 40% of Tencent's online gaming revenue from 2020, it's easy to see how this mobile game developer could end up in the AAA gaming space. The mainline Call of Duty titles continue to be successful, but Call of Duty Mobile is bringing in more fans of the series due to its free nature. While Call of Duty Mobile brings in roughly 30 million players each day, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War is only being played by a fraction of that audience (3.8 million).
Call of Duty Mobile is out now on iOS and Android devices.
Source: Reuters