Mobile Legends: Bang Bang regional league MPL Malaysia has broken its viewership record after recording over 550,000 peak viewers during its Season 12 Grand Finals.
The MLBB competition smashes its previous peak viewership record of 288,896, which was recorded during MPL Malaysia Season 11, according to data from Esports Charts. In fact, the esports competition has broken its peak viewership record every season as of Season 7, which was just over 111,000.
Despite having a significant increase in peak viewership for its Grand Finals, average viewership figures for the MPL Malaysia Season 12 weren’t as stark. However, the competition still showed an increase in this metric — 57,362 average viewers in Season 12 compared to 42,620 (Season 11).
The finals saw Southeast Asian esports organisation HomeBois defeat Team SMG and claim its first-ever MPL MY title — and a lion’s share of the $100,000 prize pool — since its debut in Season 7. HomeBois was the most popular team during the event, securing an average viewership of just over 110,000.
The second most popular match-up once again featured HomeBois, this time facing Red Giants Esports. This match-up recorded 220,550 peak viewers. In total, MPL Malaysia Season 12 garnered over 9.2m hours watched across its 161 hour air time.
Perhaps one of the most interesting viewership statistics from MPL Malaysia Season 12 was its popularity on short-form video platform TikTok. Viewership on TikTok peaked at 271,752, beating YouTube (249,260) as MLBB esports’ most popular platform. Last season TikTok viewership amounted to 106,322.
MPL Malaysia Season 12 featured a wide variety of commercial sponsors, including Asus ROG, Nescafé and Head & Shoulders. Unlike MPL Philippines and MPL Indonesia, Malaysia’s Mobile Legends regional league is not franchised with the bottom two teams having to requalify for next season.
Both HomeBois and Team SMG will participate in the upcoming M5 World Championship later this year. The season-ending international event will be held in two locations — Kuala Lumpur (WildCard Stage) and the Philippines (Main Stage). Earlier this year MOONTON, the game’s publisher, announced that the M5 World Championship will feature a team from China for the first time.
