Hot Five

Hot Five: Supercell's 45% revenue increase, Garena Free Fire banned in India, and FIFA Mobile pulled from Vietnamese app stores

The hottest news articles on PG.biz

Hot Five: Supercell's 45% revenue increase, Garena Free Fire banned in India, and FIFA Mobile pulled from Vietnamese app stores

To keep you up to date on the biggest news in mobile gaming, we round up the five most-read stories on PocketGamer.biz each week.

Read on and digest…

1. Supercell's 45% revenue increase in 2021 follows staff burnout

Clash of Clans developer Supercell has revealed that its 2021 revenue reached $2.24 billion – a 45.3 per cent increase from $1.48 billion in 2020, further distancing itself from the three-year revenue decline broken in 2020.

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen also spoke on lingering issues around the team formation at Supercell, which has traditionally affixed its identity around small teams, increasing deleterious impact on staff.

2. Secret Society Games appoints Andreea Enache as chief business officer

US games studio Secret Society Games has hired games industry veteran Andreea Enache as its chief business officer.

With a career spanning more than 20 years in the games industry, Enache has held various positions across the industry, from the likes of Sony, Konami, Namco, Marvel Entertainment, and is the founder of games consultant Digital Monk.

3. Garena Free Fire banned in India after 238 million downloads

Garena's Free Fire: Illuminate has been banned in India along with 53 other apps linked to China, following Indian government orders.

Sensor Tower has estimated that combined, Free Fire: Illuminate and Free Fire Max saw over 238 million downloads in India before the ban, and it placed third for the most downloaded mobile games in India in 2021.

4. FIFA Mobile pulled from Vietnamese app stores

EA has revealed that FIFA Mobile is no longer available to download in Vietnam, and those who have already installed the game will not be able to access it either.

In an official post, EA has stated that the reasoning for the service shutdown is due to "local regulatory issues", and that the game will be removed from the App Store and Google Play.

5. App Annie rebrands to data.ai with focus on unified data AI

App intelligence firm App Annie has revealed the changing of its name to Data.ai.

The firm has stated that the name change is to better reflect the company’s vision to drive "comprehensive digital performance" with products and partnerships. Now, the focus of its operations will be across multiple digital channels, including web, console, OTT, and streaming services.


News Editor

Aaron is the News Editor at PG.biz and has an honours degree in Creative Writing.
Having spent far too many hours playing Pokémon, he's now on a quest to be the very best like no one ever was...at putting words in the right order.