Beijing (PingWest)- Supercell’s Brawl Stars has become a new goldmine for Tencent, it has brought in USD17.5 million and 4.8 million downloads in China, where it only launched on June 9, according to data compiled by data analytic firm Sensor Tower.

Brawl Star’s Chinese launch has proven to be more successful than its global release in December 2018, when it earned USD11 million and gained 15.5 million downloads.

The huge popularity of Brawl Stars made it to consistently rank the top of the list for mobile games in App stores in China.

Brawl Star’s also outperformed another popular game title Clash Royale in China. In comparison, Clash Royale grossed USD9.4 million from 4.1 million downloads.

China has accounted for 60.7 percent of Brawl Stars’ global player spending for June period. Since June 9, players have spent USD28.8 million in the game, as per Sensor Tower’s estimates. As for downloads, the game was downloaded 6.7 million times worldwide, which means that 71 percent of all new installs came from China.

Players of the Tencent-distributed version of Brawl Star will be able to register game accounts with their WeChat or QQ accounts and create teams with contacts from the two messaging apps.

Published jointly by Tencent and Finnish developer Yoozoo, Brawl Stars did not receive a license for monetisation from the Chinese regulators until March. Unlike most countries, games publishers in China has been facing a tight regulation that it must obtain a monetisation license from the government, which could lead to months of delay in releasing a new title.

Tencent became a major shareholder in Supercell in 2016 when a Tencent-led consortium bought an 81.4% stake in Supercell. In October 2019, Tencent increased its share in the consortium, making it a controlling shareholder in Supercell.

Aside from Supercell, Tencent also owns stake in Riot Games, Epic Games, Glu Mobile and Activision Blizzard, South Korean firm CJ Games and Japanese company Aiming and Marvelous.

In 2019, Tencent’s gaming business has generated a record high of CNY114.7 billion in revenue, which made Tencent the world’s largest gaming company by revenue. Tencent’s gaming business was also boosted by China’s stay-at-home arrangement during Covid-19 outbreak period, when Tencent’s gaming revenue grew 31 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2020.

Tencent’s popular mobile game PlayerUnknow’s Battlegrounds Mobile (PUBG Mobile) has generated over USD226 million in revenue in May, making it the top-grossing mobile game of May 2020, according to Sensor Tower.

The in-game spending of USD226 million generated by PUBG Mobile is 41 percent more than it did in May 2019. PUBG Mobile has ranked the 1st place on Sensor Tower’s monthly ranking of mobile games in term of revenue for nine consistent months since last September. Tencent’s another flagship mobile game- Honour of Kings- ranked in second place in the ranking, generating USD204.5 million in revenue in May, up 42 percent year-on-year.