Tencent’s two official Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds mobile games were the two most downloaded apps worldwide on the iOS App Store in the days following their launch.

PUBG: Exhilarating Battlefield and PUBG: Army Attack were released in China on February 9th. Despite only being released in one country, the two shot to the top of App Annie’s worldwide iOS download charts on February 9th and 10th.

The games took first and second spots, beating Final Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition, Knife Hit and Tik Tok to the top.

Big hitters

Exhilarating Battlefield has been designed to offer a more authentic experience akin to that of the PC original developed by PUBG Corp. Army Attack meanwhile introduces new gameplay elements, including a greater emphasis on air and sea combat.

While the two PUBG mobile games have got off to a quick start, they are arguably late to a market that rival publishers have been quick to pounce on following PUBG's blockbuster PC success, where it has sold more than 30 million copies.

Titles such as NetEase’s Rules of Survival and Knives Out, as well as Garena Online’s Free Fire, have garnered tens of millions of downloads. Altogether, battle royale-type games have been downloaded more than 150 million times worldwide on Google Play and the App Store.

According to App Annie, the average session duration globally in January across Rules of Survival, Knives Out and Free Fire was more than 10 minutes on Android phones, while over the course of a week users played for an average of over three hours.