Taking to Twitter, Activision announced that since its launch a little over five years ago in October 2019, Call of Duty: Mobile has been downloaded by players over a billion times, an impressive number by any metric. The game has, of course, always been a huge success for Activision, so its continued success doesn’t necessarily come as a massive surprise.

Activision has also stressed on numerous occasions that it doesn’t intend to stop supporting Call of Duty: Mobile anytime soon, so it’s safe to say that we’ll likely see the game’s player numbers continuing to climb for some time to come.

On the other hand, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile hasn’t been quite as successful, with launch revenue significantly down from Call of Duty: Mobile’s performance back in 2019, as per reports earlier this year. Read more on that through here.

We have officially reached 1 Billion downloads! 🥳

Thank you to the #CODMobile Community for helping us reach this milestone! 🫡 pic.twitter.com/Zmfd1RwSqW

— Call of Duty: Mobile (@PlayCODMobile) November 4, 2024

As reported by PocketGamer.biz, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is estimated to have earned $1.4 million in revenue in its first four days after its global release on March 21 ($1.6 million when counting revenue generated on March 20, when it became available ahead of time in some regions). That’s a third of what Call of Duty Mobile managed in its first four days in 2019, earning $4.2 million.

Warzone Mobile did, of course, receive a soft launch back in December 2022, following which it has seen limited availability in some regions. Since then, to date, the game has generated $2.2 million in revenue, 47 percent of which ($1.1 million) has come through players in the United States.

It is, of course, still early days, and given the value Activision and Microsoft place on the mobile gaming space, it’s likely that we’ll continue to see the companies pushing Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile hard in the weeks and months to come. At least for now, however, it doesn’t look like the game has managed to quite replicate the success of the series’ first mobile outing.

While that may have sparked some fears over the longevity of Call of Duty Mobile, Activision has since come out with a statement to allay concerns, saying that it intends to support the game “for the long haul” with “a robust roadmap of fresh new content, activities, and updates.”

“We are committed to Call of Duty Mobile as an important part of the entire Call of Duty franchise and our overall mobile strategy,” Activision wrote in its statement.

Of course, whether those plans will end up changing if/when the company does get acquired by Microsoft remains to be seen, but it seems like the internal plan at this moment is very much to keep Call of Duty Mobile going, even once Warzone Mobile has launched.

https://twitter.com/PlayCODMobile/status/1635332401789378561

“CoD: Mobile was developed and is owned by TiMi Studios, a subsidiary of Tencent,” said Microsoft in its statement (via VGC).

While the replacement is planned, Microsoft states that it will be gradual. “CoD: Mobile is expected to be phased out over time (outside of China) with the launch of Warzone Mobile,” the company stated.

In response to the UK CMA stating that Microsoft might need to sell off the Call of Duty franchise for its acquisition to go through, Microsoft also stated that doing so would have a negative impact on competition, preventing Microsoft from competing against Apple and Google.

“A divestment would have severe adverse effects on the development of competition because it would prevent Microsoft from achieving its key strategic objective, namely building a mobile gaming business with sufficient scale in order to challenge Google and Apple,” said Microsoft.

The company has also stated that divesting any part of Activision Blizzard after its acquisition would have a negative impact, revealing that it needs Call of Duty Mobile, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, as well as Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal to compete in the mobile market.

“These are among the most relevant mobile games published by Activision,” said Microsoft. “It is these games, particularly Warzone Mobile and Diablo Immortal (rather than the King games), which would provide Microsoft with the assets, know-how and talent to develop mobile versions of its own console games.”

It also reaffirmed over 650 million users worldwide for Call of Duty Mobile since its 2019 release. Currently, Activision has over 3,000 people working on the series. As revealed recently, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has several Activision studios working on it. Beenox is handling the PC version and providing development support along with Toys for Bob, High Moon Studios, Raven Software and “others.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 releases on October 28th for PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. For more information on its various editions, head here. You can also learn more about the new multiplayer modes, Hostage and Knockout, here.

In its recent annual fiscal report for 2021, Activision announced that last year was a record one for Call of Duty Mobile. Following its launch in China, the game surpassed a total of 650 million lifetime downloads, up from the 500 million reported at this time last year.

Throughout 2021, Call of Duty Mobile also saw in-game player spending of “well above” $1 billion, while Activision also says the game’s monthly active user count also “almost matched those playing on console and PC in 2021.”

Call of Duty Mobile is undoubtedly going to remain central to Activision’s strategy on the platform, and with a dedicated mobile version of Call of Duty: Warzone also in development, it’s likely that the company’s presence in the mobile space is only going to grow.

In its latest quarterly financial report, Activision Blizzard reported a steep drop-off in its monthly active users count, especially where the Activision side of things is concerned. Standing at 150 million as of March 31, 2021, a year later, as of March 31 of this year, that number stands at 100 million- which is still quite a high figure, but represents the decline that Call of Duty has been on of late.

Activision attributes this to a couple of factors, namely, “lower engagement” in Call of Duty: Warzone and “lower premium sales” for Call of Duty: Vanguard, which has also resulted in a year-on-year decline in Q1 of 2022 for Call of Duty’s net bookings on PC and consoles. Call of Duty Mobile, on the other hand, hasn’t seen much change to its numbers.

Activision will be hoping that upcoming Call of Duty releases will reverse the series’ fortunes once again. Call of Duty: Warzone’s sequel is set to be revealed in the coming months, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)’s follow-up is being hyped up and teased ahead of its official announcement as well. Meanwhile, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is also in development, though it’s been reported that there will be no new premium Call of Duty release in 2023.

80s action heroes John Rambo and John McClane are coming to Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, and Call of Duty Mobile. Players will be able to purchase the characters in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War from May 19 at 9pm PT until June 18 at 9pm PT. The event comes to Call of Duty: Mobile on May 20 at 5 PM PT.

The Rambo and Die Hard bundles will include the operators and a combination of finishing moves, as well as legendary weapon blueprints, calling cards, emblems and more. In addition to the characters themselves and the content in their bundles, Activision has also detailed several other new pieces of content coming to Warzone and Call of Duty at large.

Die Hard’s Nakatomi Plaza, Survival Camps and a CIA Outpost will all appear as points on interest in Warzone. The game is also getting a new Killstreak in Rambo’s combat bow, which comes with explosive-tipped arrows, as well as the ballistic knife from past Black Ops titles. Warzone will also be getting a limited-time 100-player mode called Power Grab, while Black Ops Cold War will receive two new maps in Standoff and Duga.

You can watch a trailer for Season 3 below:

Call of Duty is a franchise that continues to see growth year over year almost without fail, and 2020 in particular was a big year for the series. With the successful launch of Black Ops Cold War, the sustained strong sales of Modern Warfare, and the continuing success of free-to-play releases Warzone and Mobile, Call of Duty was flying high in 2020, with over 100 million monthly active users.

In fact, that prolonged success has helped the series achieve some pretty impressive numbers in its lifetime. Speaking during Activision-Blizzard’s recent quarterly investors call, CEO Bobby Kotick revealed that throughout its life, to date Call of Duty has generated a whopping $27 billion in revenue (including sales for premium releases and microtransactions and what have you), which makes it “one of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time.”

Activision has every intention of keeping the growth of Call of Duty Mobile and Warzone game, while a new premium game in the series is slated for later this year as well. Add to that sustained sales for titles like Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War, and more year-over-year growth looks quite likely for the series in 2021 once more.

Activision have announced rather impressive (to say the least) commercial figures for the Call of Duty franchise. The franchise has surpassed $3 billion in net revenue over the last 12 months, with over 200 million players in total having played one of Call of Duty Mobile, Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in that period.

Net bookings are up 80% year-over-year for the franchise, while unit sales are up 40%. Call of Duty has also had the largest ever number of collective players across console and PC for the series, while November 2020 was also the biggest November ever for the series in terms of hours played and monthly players. Meanwhile, free-to-play battle royale shooter Warzone, which had over 80 million players at last count, has also enjoyed continued success, having now amassed over 85 million players.

Upon release, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War broke launch digital sales records for the series. Activision recently announced that Modern Warfare set a first-year sales record for the series as well.