The M4 World Championship, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s international esports event, recorded over 1.1m peak viewers during its opening day on 1st January 2023.
According to statistics released by Esports Charts, the most viewed match-up on day one featured Indonesian organisation ONIC Esports versus Malaysian team TODAK.
Currently on its third day, the competition’s highest viewership so far occurred on day two with RRQ Hoshi versus ECHO garnering 1.5m peak viewers.
Whilst it’s too early to tell how these numbers will impact the overall popularity of the tournament, previous iteration M3’s highest viewed Group Stage match occurred on day four and recorded 1.74m peak viewers.
Taking place in Indonesia, one of the title’s most popular regions, the M4 World Championship will look to maintain or beat lofty viewership figures recorded during its previous two editions. To put it into perspective, M2 recorded 3.08m peak viewers, whereas M3 secured 3.19m viewers.
A month prior to the event, it was announced that M4 will take place in different venues than originally planned. For the Group Stage, the original venue, XO Hall, was replaced by Bali United Studio for the group stage. Meanwhile, the knockout stages are set to occur at the Tenis Indoor Stadium Senayan. Similar to the championship’s previous edition, M4 features an $800,000 (~£670,000) prize pool.
Outside of the title’s global championships, Mobile Legends has also seen viewership growth from its regional leagues — in particular Indonesia and Malaysia. Last year’s MPL ID Season 9 was the third most viewed MLBB esports event ever, recording 2.85m viewers. Meanwhile, MPL Malaysia also continued its development, recording a record-high viewership for the league during its latest season (232,500).
Despite not hitting viewership records set in 2021, last year’s MPL Philippines Season 10 was the league’s second-most-viewed event after garnering 829,300 peak viewers.
