Fortnite Mobile made 5 times more money than PUBG Mobile in its first week on iOS

In terms of revenue, Fortnite Mobile is already well ahead of PUBG Mobile.

Fortnite Mobile's first week revenue is outpacing PUBG Mobile five to one. Despite both games having launched at around the same time in the West, PUBG Mobile only got around to enabling in-game purchases a week ago.

App analytics firm Sensor Tower estimates that Fortnite Mobile players spent $3.7 million on in-app purchases, compared to just $700,000 for PUBG Mobile.

This only takes into account iOS revenue, and PUBG Mobile fares a bit better with about $1 million across both Android and iOS, though still nowhere close to Fortnite. The numbers only cover countries outside of China, which is crucial.

There's even better news for Epic Games, because, despite starting off with a much smaller player base (3.7 million downloads) due to the invite-only initial rollout, it nonetheless made more money off that smaller audience compared to PUBG Mobile's whopping 22 million.

The report indicates that each game's different approach to monetisation could be a factor in this. Cosmetic items in PUBG are earned through randomised loot boxes, which is what you spend real money on. In Fortnite, however, you can buy skins or emotes directly.

There's also the Battle Pass, which comes with a rotating set of weekly challenges that unlock more items when completed.

Then there's the fact that purchases made in Fortnite Mobile transfer over to the console and PC versions, and vice versa. This, on top of it being a big inventive for players to spend, may also be boosting iOS revenue indirectly.