MLBB Industry
As Mobile Legends celebrates 10 years and more than 1.5 billion installations, MOONTON Games is expanding its global esports structure, bringing M8 to Europe and extending its partnership with Visa through 2029.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is entering its second decade with an increasingly global strategy.
September 2026 marks the game's 10th anniversary, but for MOONTON Games the milestone is also becoming a starting point for what comes next.
New regional competitive pathways, the expansion of the MLBB Championship Tour, the arrival of the M Series in Europe and a new three-year global partnership with Visa all point toward the same direction: turning an ecosystem historically strongest in Southeast Asia into an increasingly connected global esports network.
Ten years after launch, MLBB now reports more than 1.5 billion installations and 110 million monthly active users across more than 80 countries.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang launched in 2016 and has since grown into one of the largest mobile gaming ecosystems in the world.
According to MOONTON Games, the title has now reached:
| MLBB after 10 years | Reported figure |
|---|---|
| Global installations | 1.5+ billion |
| Monthly active users | 110 million |
| Markets | 80+ countries |
| Launch year | 2016 |
To mark the anniversary, MOONTON launched the global ALL IN MLBB campaign in September, combining in-game rewards, community activities and offline celebrations.
But the anniversary arrives at the same time as some of the largest structural changes in MLBB's competitive history.
At the beginning of 2026, MOONTON introduced a new global structure built around five major regions:
The objective is to create clearer regional pathways while connecting more teams to MLBB's international competitions.
At the centre of that strategy is the MLBB Championship Tour (MCT).
MCT provides another layer between domestic competition and global events, particularly for countries and teams outside the established MPL franchise system.
Instead of every market needing an MPL-level league, local tournaments and regional organisers can feed teams into a wider Championship Tour.
The next major step arrived with the announcement of MCT SEA.
The new competition expands the Championship Tour model into Southeast Asia and creates an international pathway for teams outside the region's established MPL leagues.
MCT SEA will involve all 11 sovereign Southeast Asian countries, connecting domestic competitions and open leagues with the wider M8 qualification system.
The tournament also introduces a route for development leagues.
Champions from:
will compete through a dedicated Open League Qualifier pathway for a place in the MCT SEA Playoffs.
That means development-level competition now has a potential route beyond national borders.
For younger players and emerging organisations, the ladder becomes significantly longer:
Development League → MCT SEA → M8 pathway
The globalisation strategy will reach one of its biggest milestones in January 2027.
The M8 World Championship Finals will take place in Istanbul, Türkiye, marking the first time the M Series reaches Europe.
The move follows another historic step earlier in 2026, when both the MLBB Mid Season Cup and MLBB Women's International made their European debuts in Paris.
The journey from Paris to Istanbul reflects how quickly MLBB's international footprint is expanding outside its traditional Southeast Asian base.
M8 will also be the first M Series where the new MCT structure directly feeds teams into the World Championship.
| Global milestone | Location |
|---|---|
| MSC & MWI 2026 | Paris, France |
| Asian Games 2026 | Aichi-Nagoya, Japan |
| M8 Wildcard | Bangkok, Thailand |
| M8 Finals | Istanbul, Türkiye |
For emerging regions, reaching the M Series is becoming less dependent on one isolated qualifier and increasingly connected to year-round regional competition.
Expansion is also happening commercially.
On September 21, Visa and MOONTON Games announced a new three-year partnership covering the next three editions of the M Series.
Visa becomes the Global Payment Partner for:
The agreement runs through 2029.
Visa had already entered the MLBB ecosystem at M7, but the new deal turns that initial collaboration into a multi-year global partnership.
As part of the agreement, Visa cardholders will receive opportunities including preferential access to M Series tickets, VIP experiences, meet-and-greets and behind-the-scenes activities.
For MLBB, a partnership extending through three World Championships represents more than another tournament sponsor.
Longer commercial agreements can provide greater stability when planning global events, fan experiences and international activations.
They also indicate that major non-endemic brands are increasingly treating mobile esports as a long-term entertainment property rather than a short-term experiment.
The M Series gives those brands access to an audience spread across multiple regions while maintaining especially strong engagement in mobile-first markets.
MOONTON describes the M Series as the most-watched mobile esports tournament in history, with a reported peak of 5.68 million concurrent viewers.
Recent competitive results have also supported MOONTON's push toward a more geographically diverse ecosystem.
At MSC 2026 in Paris, Team Spirit became the first team from outside Southeast Asia to win an official international MLBB major.
The EECA representative defeated Myanmar's Yangon Galacticos in the Grand Final.
For an ecosystem traditionally dominated internationally by teams from the Philippines, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets, the result demonstrated that competitive growth outside SEA is beginning to translate into major tournament success.
That development strengthens the case for investing in regional infrastructure rather than concentrating international opportunities exclusively around established markets.
Another major milestone arrives almost immediately after the game's 10th anniversary.
MLBB will compete at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with the Main Stage running from September 29 to October 1.
The event brings national teams into one of Asia's largest multi-sport competitions and gives MLBB exposure beyond the traditional esports tournament environment.
MOONTON has positioned the Asian Games appearance alongside Paris and Istanbul as part of the title's broader international expansion.
The result is a calendar where MLBB now moves between professional leagues, regional Championship Tours, global club tournaments and national-team competition.
Southeast Asia remains the centre of the MLBB ecosystem.
The Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia continue to produce some of the game's largest leagues, strongest audiences and most successful professional teams.
The difference is what now exists around them.
East Asia has the MCT EA circuit connecting China, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia.
The Americas are connected through MCT AMER.
EECA has developed from an emerging region into the home of an MSC champion.
EMEA continues to expand through regional leagues and tournaments.
And MCT SEA now creates another pathway for markets and organisations outside the established franchise leagues.
MLBB's next stage of growth therefore appears less focused on creating isolated new competitions and more focused on connecting them.
Ten years ago, MLBB launched as a mobile MOBA.
Today, the ecosystem stretches from grassroots and development leagues to regional championships, professional leagues, the Asian Games and international tournaments watched by millions.
The next challenge is maintaining that scale while giving more regions sustainable reasons to participate.
MOONTON's recent moves provide an early picture of how it intends to do that:
More regional pathways.
More international destinations.
More long-term commercial partnerships.
And one global competitive structure increasingly connected by the road to the M Series.
MLTV will continue covering developments across the wider Mobile Legends ecosystem, including:
MLBB's first decade built one of the largest ecosystems in mobile esports.
Its second will test how far that ecosystem can expand.