Sensor Tower data indicates that global mobile gaming revenue saw a modest increase of 1.3% in 2025, reaching $82.3 billion.
Among this, the top 30 Chinese mobile game publishers collectively generated $23.3 billion globally, a figure essentially flat compared to 2024, accounting for 35% of the total revenue from the world's top 100 mobile game publishers.
TENCENT (00700) maintained its position as the world's top-grossing mobile game publisher in 2025, driven by the steady performance of its flagship titles such as "Honor of Kings," "Peacekeeper Elite," and "PUBG MOBILE."
Sensor Tower data reveals that "Honor of Kings" generated over $2 billion in revenue for the full year 2025 (excluding third-party Android channels in China), marking a robust 5% year-on-year increase and setting a new historical record.
In September 2025, the new-generation tactical shooter "Delta Action" celebrated its first anniversary with a highlight moment.
The game's revenue skyrocketed 29-fold year-on-year in 2025, powerfully securing the 5th spot on China's iOS game revenue chart and the 29th position globally, establishing itself as TENCENT Games' strongest growth engine for the year.
Diandian Interactive achieved explosive growth across multiple genres in 2025, with its global revenue surging 87%, propelling it to the runner-up position on the publisher revenue chart.
The strategy game "Whiteout Survival" saw its revenue increase by 45% year-on-year in 2025 to $2.1 billion, maintaining its position as the top-grossing Chinese game overseas for 24 consecutive months, with cumulative earnings surpassing $4 billion.
The merge game "Tasty Travels: Merge Game," which combines "world travel" and "food cooking" themes, embarked on a rapid growth trajectory in 2025, with revenue exploding 28-fold year-on-year.
Cumulative revenue broke through $100 million, and the game made its debut at 27th place on the chart of top-grossing Chinese games overseas, becoming a standout title in Diandian Interactive's diversified portfolio strategy.
In recent years, the global merge game genre has experienced explosive growth, with growth rates exceeding 110% consecutively in 2023-2024, and climbing to a new high in 2025 with a sharp 95% year-on-year increase, pushing the market size beyond $2.4 billion.
Driven by this strong performance, merge games have become the most explosive sub-segment in the global mobile gaming market, serving as a core strategic pivot for major publishers to restructure their product matrices and capture incremental market share.
Benefiting from the rapid growth of its three merge games—"Gossip Harbor," "Seaside Escape," and "Flambé: Merge & Cook"—Lemon Microfun's revenue surged 165% in 2025, solidifying its position as the top-grossing publisher in the merge game segment.
Its ranking jumped four places to 4th on the publisher revenue chart.
The flagship title "Gossip Harbor" saw its revenue skyrocket 242% in 2025, claiming the 2nd spot on the chart of top-grossing Chinese games overseas.
"Seaside Escape" experienced a 70% revenue increase, ranking 12th on the list, while the new title "Flambé: Merge & Cook" entered the global top 10 merge game revenue chart at 7th place.
In 2025, hardcore strategy games are breaking through user demographics via hybrid "SLG+X" gameplay, becoming a key driver of market growth.
Sensor Tower data shows that global strategy game revenue surged 20% year-on-year in 2025, exceeding $20 billion.
Growth was even more pronounced in overseas markets, with key markets like the US, Japan, and Korea seeing increases of 24%, 33%, and 20% respectively.
Florere Game, powered by the impressive growth of its two 4X strategy games "Last Z: Survival Shooter" and "Dark War: Survival," saw its revenue soar 20-fold in 2025.
This performance earned the publisher its first entry into the top publisher revenue chart at 6th place.
"Last Z: Survival Shooter," using shooter mechanics as a key user acquisition highlight, generated $470 million in revenue in 2025, making its debut at 6th on the chart of top-grossing Chinese games overseas.
"Dark War: Survival," driven by its "SLG + strong narrative" approach, earned $380 million in 2025, appearing for the first time at 8th place on the overseas revenue chart.
Paper Games saw its global revenue increase significantly by 45% in 2025, climbing three spots to rank 8th on the publisher revenue chart.
The flagship title "Love and Deepspace" celebrated its second anniversary in 2025, with global revenue growing 44% to $550 million.
Revenue from overseas markets doubled, helping the game secure the 13th position on the chart of top-grossing Chinese games overseas.
Habby's two hybrid-casual games, "Archero 2" and "Capybara Go!," both made their first appearances on the overseas game revenue chart, ranking 17th and 22nd respectively.
This success drove the publisher's revenue up by 35%, pushing it into the top 10 publisher chart at 9th place.
The action-shooter "Archero 2" celebrated its first anniversary near the end of 2025, with its comprehensively upgraded Roguelike gameplay fueling a staggering 630% surge in global revenue, surpassing $200 million.
The idle RPG "Capybara Go!," featuring a capybara as the protagonist and emphasizing relaxed idle gameplay, generated revenue of approximately $140 million.
Thanks to the outstanding performance of its flagship product "Wuthering Waves," Kuro Game's revenue increased substantially by 56% in 2025.
Its ranking improved from 26th in 2024 to 16th in 2025.
Revenue from "Wuthering Waves" rose 66% year-on-year in 2025, making it one of the anime-style games with the highest revenue growth for the year.
In January 2025, Giant Network (002558.SZ) launched the new multiplayer cooperative adventure game "Supernatural Action Squad."
The title generated over $75 million on the Chinese iOS market in 2025, helping to double Giant Network's annual revenue and set a new historical record.
This performance earned the publisher a spot at 29th place on the revenue chart, marking it as a strategic product in the company's expansion into emerging genres.
Beyond the main list, other Chinese publishers that entered the global top 100 by revenue included Mattel163, ONEMT, Happibits, and Youka Network, bringing the total to 34 companies.
Diandian Interactive's "Whiteout Survival" saw its overseas revenue increase significantly by 32% in 2025, exceeding $1.65 billion and retaining its position as the top-grossing Chinese game overseas for the year.
The US, Korean, and Japanese markets collectively contributed 64% of the total overseas revenue, with the Korean and Japanese markets showing particularly strong growth of 70% and 92% respectively in 2025.
Growth in the Chinese iOS market was also impressive, with full-year revenue surging 128% to reach $480 million.
A total of eight games made their debut on the TOP 30 chart of top-grossing Chinese games overseas in 2025, including "Kingshot," "Last Z: Survival Shooter," "Dark War Survival," "Archero 2," "Capybara Go!," "Merge Cooking," "Tasty Travels: Merge Game," and "Lands of Jail."
Happibits' cooking-themed merge game "Merge Cooking" entered a phase of rapid growth in 2025, with revenue exploding by 267%.
It made its first appearance on the annual overseas game revenue chart at 24th place and also entered the annual global merge game revenue chart at 5th position.
Also making its debut on the overseas revenue chart was "Lands of Jail," a prison-themed 4X strategy game launched by E-World in March 2025, which entered the chart at 29th place.
Since June 2025, the game's monthly revenue has consistently remained above $10 million, with annual earnings approaching $100 million.
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