Zenless Zone Zero celebrates first anniversary with $442.1m, just 23% of Genshin Impact’s year one

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HoYoverse’s urban fantasy RPG Zenless Zone Zero celebrates its first anniversary today, July 4th, 2025, after earning $442.1 million on mobile in its first 12 months.

It’s a modest sum compared to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, which each surpassed $1 billion in their first year on mobile.

In fact, Zenless Zone Zero generated just 23% of the mobile earnings achieved by Genshin Impact when comparing each’s first year on the platform, with the open-world giant having come closer to $2bn in that timeframe.

This was despite Zenless Zone Zero surpassing 45 million pre-registrations, an industry record that outshone Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail combined.

However, Zenless Zone Zero did outperform HoYoverse’s 2016 title Honkai Impact 3rd more than four times over, comparing respective first years, according to AppMagic estimates of gross player spending between Google Play and the App Store.

The latest addition to HoYoverse’s games portfolio was also the fourth highest-grossing new mobile game of 2024, only behind Nexon’s Dungeon & Fighter: Mobile in China, Infold Games’ Love & Deepspace and DeNA’s Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket.

Though exact figures and rankings may vary when considering revenue from alternative app stores and web shops.

Spending zone

Zenless Zone Zero’s most lucrative period on mobile was during its launch month, July 2024. Over those 28 days the game generated $97.5m, or 32% of its mobile earnings over the full year. It generated $7m on its launch date and $43.4m in its first week, before declining later in the month.

Thereafter, the gacha title established a player spending trend often seen with games of its genre, with brief peaks in spending aligning with new content updates and new characters added to the gacha. This has led to a spike approximately once per month, though the extent of those spikes has varied significantly.

The version 1.2 update on September 25th, for example, saw daily player spending surge by 49% to $2.8m. A new battle pass, limited-time events and Caeser King’s addition to the gacha all encouraged players to engage and spend.

Version 1.4 saw a much more dramatic surge, up 189% on update day December 18th, hitting $9m. This day remains Zenless Zone Zero’s most lucrative on mobile yet and helped drive December to become the game’s second highest-grossing month, at $53.9m.

The update introduced new locations like Port Elpis and Reverb Arena, new story content, an additional game mode Lost Void, and saw the release of two highly anticipated characters, Hoshimi Miyabi and Asaba Harumasa.

Zenless Zone Zero’s second most lucrative day was much more recent, on June 6th, 2025. This coincided with the major version 2.0 update, which triggered the game’s biggest daily spend spike yet – up 740% to $8.5m. Player spending remained above pre-update levels for 10 consecutive days and drove June to become Zenless Zone Zero’s third-biggest month.

Version 2.0 took players to a new in-game city, Failume Heights in the Waifei Peninsula, where they were tasked with managing operations at Suibian Temple, forging alliances with new characters and battling in expanded Hollows.

As the game reaches its first anniversary, this version remains the latest update available, but version 2.1 is expected to follow on July 16th. Full details are to be unveiled on the anniversary, July 4th.

HoYoverse also plans to celebrate with a real-world collaboration with chicken shop Butchies. The promotional campaign will take place in London from July 15th to August 15th, during which time players can buy limited-time food products and scratch cards containing redeem codes for in-game items.

We recently spoke with Merge Mansion’s product marketing manager Shuhei Watanabe about the value of “hyper-local” campaigns and driving installs through attention to unique cultural clues.