Title: The King of Chinese Mobile Games, “Genshin Impact”: Year after year, its popularity remains high, and two years of revenue keeps climbing.
When discussing the revenue of Chinese mobile games, “Genshin Impact” inevitably comes up. According to market estimations, since its launch, the game’s revenue has reached nearly 36 billion RMB, making it the king of the Chinese mobile game market. As another year passes, how will “Genshin Impact” perform in terms of revenue? Can it maintain its first-year level?
Estimated annual revenue: 30.4 billion RMB, second-year popularity remains stable
Based on data from SevenMile and GenshinLab, “Genshin Impact” has achieved a total revenue of approximately 350 million USD in the second year in the iOS market, assuming an average of 1.4 times the revenue of iOS on the Android market, along with PC and console revenues, the total revenue in the second year is around 1 billion USD. As MiHoYo has not gone public, accurately verifying the total revenue of “Genshin Impact” is quite challenging. Here, the data from Bilibili YouTuber “Chinese Animation Mobile Game Observation” is referenced, suggesting that the total revenue of the game in the second year is approximately 30.4 billion RMB, converting to USD is around 4.2 billion. This is also consistent with the data showing that “Genshin Impact” held about 30% of the global market share in the second year. Given the significant error in valuation, the second year’s revenue should be roughly the same as the first year, which is reflected in the game’s popularity.
Google Trends shows that the average search index of “Genshin Impact” in the first year globally was 47.25, while in the second year it rose to 67.13, indicating a steady increase in popularity over the years. Additionally, according to the rankings published by Data.ai, in 2022, miHoYo not only ranked second in global revenue among overseas games, but also topped the list for the largest revenue increase. This shows that “Genshin Impact” truly became miHoYo’s top earner.
Unveiling the role revenue, Suzaku and Tofu outshine the rest, while the Aquarium version is the weakest
Despite its solid revenue, “Genshin Impact” owes much to the allure of its characters, after all, “paying for love” is the driving force behind spending. But who is the most popular character among players? According to GenshinLab’s statistics, over the past two years since the game’s launch, Suzaku Linhua has achieved a revenue of 36 million USD (only from the iOS market data), creating a single role pool myth. Even popular characters like Zhongli and Klee lag behind. As for total revenue, it’s still Goddess Rikya. Considering the Rikya reincarnation pool and Xinhai’s pool at the same time, the total revenue of Rikya exceeds 60 million USD (only from the iOS market data), securing the top spot for the strongest revenue. Although calling it “revenue” is somewhat misleading, the lowest revenue is indeed from the water element role. According to the previous calculation method, the Xinhai reincarnation pool’s revenue is only 5.8 million USD, although this method has some water, it’s unlikely to be much better. Then, there’s Prince’s second reincarnation pool, ultimately achieving a revenue of 7.7 million USD, how can he still boast about three reincarnations?
Continuous investment in output, seeing how “Genshin Impact” spends its money
Following the usual practice of most game companies, after making a profit, they would quickly empty the player’s pockets and invest in the development of the next game or simply leave. However, miHoYo is doing the opposite, pouring the money they’ve earned back into development and various activities, as if the act of making money is unrelated to them. It’s worth noting that when “Genshin Impact” was initially developed, the team had only 400 people, with an investment of approximately 100 million USD. According to rumors, the current “Genshin Impact” team has