Third-party top up pubg mobile platform market penetration rate reached 37% in 2023 (source: Niko Partners data), and price advantage is among the key attractions. The Southeast Asia market is a case in point. Online websites such as Codashop have reduced the unit price of UC (Unknown Cash) by 12%-25% compared to the official channel via regional pricing strategies. For instance, Indonesian players can use 750,000 Indonesian rupiah (equivalent to 48 US dollars) to recharge 10,000 UC through Codashop, but the official channel is 63 US dollars, with a saving of 23.8% in cost. The price difference is due to the platform’s cooperation with local payment channels. For instance, Brazil’s “Pix Instant Payment System” can reduce the cost of the transaction from 6.5% of the official channel to 2.1%, benefiting the players. Krafton’s 2022 financial report shows that third-party platforms contributed 29% of PUBG Mobile’s global recharge revenue, among which the low-price strategy drove the user growth rate by 41%.
The abundance of payment methods is another driver. According to statistics from payment service provider Xsolla, pubg mobile top up website offers an average of 28 local payment channels (such as UPI in India and BKM in Turkey), covering 35% of cash payment players whom official channels don’t cover. For instance, the transaction volume of Brazilian players making payments through the “PicPay” e-wallet increased by 67% in 2023. The reason being that it allows users to make payments in three installments without any interest, and the median amount of a single order increased from $12 to $35. Moreover, hidden discounts are being offered by some platforms through “exchange rate arbitrage”. For instance, in 2023, users in Egypt could make US dollar top-ups to circumvent the devaluation of the local currency (the Egyptian pound lost 48% of its value in the year), saving effectively 19% of the cost.
The localization operation strategy also makes the platform stickier. For instance, Codashop has collaborated with Indomaret convenience stores in Indonesia, where offline cash top-ups can be conducted by the users. It serves 86% of the country’s unbanked gamers with over 1.2 million transactions every month. Turkish online portal “Oyungezer” has integrated the phone bill deduction service of telecom operator Turkcell, reducing the recharge time from 15 seconds through official channel to 3 seconds, a rise in efficiency by 80%. According to the data from market research firm App Annie, these localized services have made the user retention rate of the third-party platforms 22% higher than the official channels, and the repurchase frequency is 1.7 times a month.
Social viral growth and reward systems also drive the expansion of platforms. In 2023, Philippine platform Garena Shells initiated a 15% cashback for referring friends to top up, and this led to an increase of its user base by 53% within three months, with 72% of users aged 18-24 years. Similarly, Malaysia’s “Touch ‘n Go” e-wallet promoted UC gift packages through TikTok live streaming, with sales volume during one live streaming totaling more than 250,000 US dollars, and the conversion rate 19 percentage points above that of regular advertisements. This marketing tactic builds synergy with in-game behavior – e.g., in 2023, the “Recharge $20 and get a limited parachute skin” campaign launched by PUBG Mobile and Lazada in collaboration helped the daily revenue high of the platform surpass $4.3 million, a year-on-year increase of 290%.
Despite the danger of account suspension (the third-party channels’ violation rate is 14% higher than that of official ones), players still opt for unofficial channels for “immediate demand satisfaction”. For instance, in 2023, the average arrival time for Indian players to recharge UC through Paytm was 8 seconds, but Google Play took 3 minutes for compliance review, resulting in 23% of urgent top-up users flowing to third parties. In addition, one cannot ignore the “loophole dividend” of the gray and black industry supply chain: In the “UC Farm” case cracked by the Thai police in 2022, the criminal gang profited from the exchange rate gap of credit cards from different countries to purchase cheap UC in large quantities and resold it at 75% of the market price, and they had gained an illegal profit of over 800,000 US dollars in a month. Although such gray transactions were cracked down on by the authorities (with 2.1 million accounts banned in 2023), due to tempting short-term benefits, they still managed to attract some price-sensitive users to take the risk at top up pubg mobile.