Honor of Kings International Championship 2025 breaks viewership record

Honor of Kings' esports scene is growing massively outside of China. While the mobile game is dominated by Chinese teams, the International Championship 2025 showed that the competitive side of Honor of Kings is quite viable throughout the world. 

The Honor of Kings International Championship 2025 reported over 694,000 peak viewers during the Grand Final. This places it as the most-viewed Honor of Kings tournament outside of China. 

Honor of Kings International Championship Grand Finals

The International Championship saw the top teams (outside of China) competing in the Philippines over the weekend. It culminated in an intense Grand Final match between Nova Esports and HomeBois BSE. 

The Grand Finals definitely stole the show, with the other popular matches not even reaching over 100,000 peak viewers. The tournament actually saw a lower average viewership than it did in 2024, going from 36,500 viewers to 29,000 viewers. 

Despite the tournament starting off a bit slow, the Grand Finals had a higher peak than any other international Honor of Kings tournament to date. This includes the World Cup 2025, which had a peak viewership of 653,300 viewers. 

This shows a growing interest in Honor of Kings (even if it's only to watch the best-of-the-best in the Grand Finals). While it's no question that the esports scene is massive in China, where it held a record-breaking tournament last month, the game has been growing all over Southeast Asia and beyond. The English broadcast for the International had over 210,000 peak viewers, which means it could be spreading further than expected. 

Honor of Kings plans to expand its esports roadmap in 2026, including regional leagues in countries that have shown interest in the scene, like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil. The goal is to eventually see the world's top teams take on China, who are seen as the dominant country to beat in Honor of Kings.