In March 2024, miHoYo’s Honkai: Star Rail continued to dominate over its predecessor Genshin Impact, significantly widening the gap over February’s lead.
According to data from AppMagic, Honkai: Star Rail generated over double the revenue of Genshin Impact on mobile last month, bringing in $118.3 million compared to Genshin’s $58.5 million.
This has marked March 2024 as Genshin’s worst full month on record by AppMagic estimates, showing a decline in revenue throughout the year so far.
The Rise of Honkai: Star Rail
While the estimates by AppMagic focus on in-game spending on mobile only, Honkai: Star Rail has shown a resurgence in recent months while Genshin Impact lags behind, with both games competing for the same audience.
For Star Rail, the $118.3 million revenue in March marked its best month for in-app purchases since August 2023’s slightly higher $118.4 million. However, neither figure has surpassed the peak revenue just after its launch when it generated $208.9 million in May 2023.
March 27, 2024, saw the release of Version 2.1 for Honkai: Star Rail, introducing new characters, missions, and events. This update led to the game’s best performance in terms of revenue for the month, generating $12.6 million compared to $3.9 million the day before. The game maintained a consistent higher revenue for the rest of the month, highlighting the impact of a new version update.
Similarly, Genshin Impact’s Version 4.5 launch on March 13, 2024, resulted in the game’s highest player spending day last month, bringing in $7.1 million. This was a significant increase from the $1.7 million revenue on March 12th before the update. However, the revenue boost tapered off after about a week, settling at just over $1 million per day on average.
Last week, miHoYo announced film adaptations of both Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, with government support to transform Shanghai into a premier “city of film.”
