In 2025, mobile MOBA games reached record viewership numbers, successfully competing with traditional PC giants in the global esports arena. Although Honor of Kings still lags behind industry leaders in absolute numbers, it demonstrates the highest growth rate in its audience.
League of Legends remains the most popular esports discipline in the world, amassing over 735.9 million hours watched in 2025. Second place among MOBA games is held by the mobile title Mobile Legends: Bang Bang with 435.1 million hours, outpacing DOTA 2. Honor of Kings currently holds the fourth position, having not yet crossed the 100-million watch hour mark per year.
Despite its smaller scale, Honor of Kings was the only one of the four major MOBAs whose audience has grown since 2024—the total increase over two years was 45%. At the Esports World Cup 2026, the game garnered 4.8 million hours watched, which is a 31.4% increase compared to the previous year. Four-year world championship statistics also confirm a steady growth of interest in HoK tournaments. For comparison, at the Esports World Cup 2026, the mobile ML:BB lost 10% of its viewership, DOTA 2's numbers remained unchanged, and League of Legends grew to 23.7 million hours.
Southeast Asia remains the main hub for mobile esports. In 2025, 97.8% of all ML:BB watch hours came specifically from this region, with Indonesia generating 63.5%. Indonesia also accounts for 34.9% of the Honor of Kings viewership, successfully complementing its core fan base in China. Experts attribute the success of mobile games to developers focusing on regular local tournaments broadcast in the players' native languages.
The gap between mobile and PC esports at the major championship level is rapidly shrinking. In 2025, the total watch time for the ML:BB M7 World Championship and League of Legends Worlds 2025 differed by less than 0.65%. While League of Legends relies on one record-breaking global event per year, mobile MOBAs successfully distribute their multi-million audience across several large-scale events.
Let us remind you: «We believe that we can become the No. 1 team» — dumau on Legacy’s victories over NAVI and Falcons and the path to the top
