At the conclusion of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang 4 (M4) World Championship in Jakarta on Jan. 15, tournament organizer and game developer Moonton Games announced that the M5 World Championship would take place in the Philippines this year.
After the finals, Moonton Games and its partner Esports Charts revealed that the M4 World Championship reached 4.2M peak concurrent users (PCU), becoming one of the “Top 3” esports competitions on its charts, following Free World Series 2021 Singapore (5.41M) and the League of Legends World Championship 2022 (5.14M). It should be noted that all viewership numbers collected by Esports Charts excluded data from Mainland China, the biggest esports market in the world.
M4 was mainly streamed on Youtube, Facebook, TikTok (whose parent company owns Moonton Games) and Twitch (exclusive for Singapore users). Moonton Games confirmed this information with The Esports Advocate on Monday.
As one of the main sponsors of the event alongside gaming chair maker Secret Lab, Esports Charts, and Wonderful Indonesia (a representative of the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy), TikTok’s logo appeared in the game during the competition. In 2021, Moonton was acquired by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance at a valuation of approximately $4B.
During a press conference at the M4 World Championship,the Republic of Indonesian Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Sandiago Uno highlighted the value of hosting esports events in the country: “The esports market in Indonesia is valued at about $2 billion, which would be expected to raise double ($4 billion) in 2025.”
Editor’s note: This story contained an error about the valuation number of Moonton when it was purchased by ByteDance. It has been corrected.