Valorant Mobile becomes instant iPhone hit after strong $1M China debut

Tencent Holdings’ Valorant Mobile debuted in China at the top of the iPhone charts with over 170K downloads, attracting $1M in player spending. Zeng Xiaofeng, Niko Partners’ Vice President, was not surprised by this seemingly high achievement, pointing out that Tencent was likely playing the long game.

The Shenzhen-based video game giant said Valorant is one of its biggest mobile launches this year and is closely following its strategy to sustain an evergreen franchise. The original PC version was released in 2020. However, the mobile video game is only available in the Chinese market, but the global launch date has yet to be confirmed. 

Data from Appfigures showed that Valorant’s first-day downloads matched Tencent’s other smartphone video game, DnF Mobile, which was released last year. The free-to-play game was co-developed by Tencent’s Lightspeed Studios and Riot Games. It has an in-app marketplace where players can buy character cosmetics for upgrades. The game is currently sixth on the App Store’s top earners list.

However, Niko Partners’ VP Zeng Xiaofeng noted that the multinational technology conglomerate is not rushing to monetize the game up front. The Cryptopolitan previously reported that Tencent hopes to boost future user engagement and earnings with this new mobile video game. 

Tencent wants to offer more options

Executives at the video game publisher said they want to offer gamers and players more options. However, they remain skeptical about whether Valorant and Call of Duty, another of their top mobile video games, would eventually cannibalize each other. The video game company runs several shooting franchises on mobile, including CrossFire, PUBG Mobile, and its in-house Arena Breakout and Delta Force.

The company also said last week that Valorant Mobile had attracted over 70 million pre-registered gamers and players across different platforms. However, the Head of Valorant Studio, Anna Donion, explained that China was chosen for the first foray because of its large and competitive mobile FPS community.

She added that it also made sense to start locally since Lightspeed developers were already trusted in the country and region. 

“We think it makes sense to start more locally, where their mobile expertise shines, before we finalize our plans to expand to other regions.”

–Anna Donion, Head of Valorant Studio

Donion pointed out that the decision was not surprising because China was a priority market. She explained that releasing the game there first would give the developers time to beta test and fix bugs before the global release. 

Valorant hides the money

The game’s developers clarified that although downloading and playing is free, much of their revenue would come from in-game purchases of skins for weapons and characters.

However, unlike other games that transparently display costs in local currencies or the U.S. dollar, Valorant transactions are done using Valorant Points (VP). The game’s developers hope to tap as many players and gamers as possible from the pool of 3.3 billion Android and 1.3 billion iOS global users.

The mobile gaming market reportedly accounted for nearly $118 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $156 billion by 2029.

The game’s developers are also unsure which territories would follow after China. However, they speculate that the U.S., the UK, and South Korea would likely be next in line. There is also no indication of when the game will reach these regions, but the game’s developers believe a 2026 global release is more likely. 

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