Saudi Arabia acquires ByteDance’s mobile gaming division for $6 billion

Friday 20 March 2026 - 18:20

Saudi Arabia is expanding its footprint in the global video game industry. ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, has agreed to sell its mobile gaming subsidiary Moonton to Saudi-owned Savvy Games for more than $6 billion, according to both companies. Savvy Games was established by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to diversify the kingdom’s economy in preparation for a post-oil era.

Moonton, founded in 2014 and headquartered in Shanghai, is known for its multiplayer title Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, which attracts over 110 million active users per month in Southeast Asia. Zhang Yunfan, Moonton’s CEO, stated in an internal letter obtained by AFP that the company will become a “100% subsidiary of Savvy” once the deal closes, while its management team will remain unchanged. Regulatory approvals are still required.

ByteDance entered the gaming market in 2018 and acquired Moonton in 2021 for $4 billion to expand its gaming portfolio. However, the company is now refocusing on artificial intelligence (AI), a sector gaining intense interest among Chinese tech giants. ByteDance is among the largest Chinese clients of Nvidia and hosts the country’s largest AI research team in the private sector. Earlier this year, it launched SeeDance 2.0, a video generator capable of producing cinematic-quality sequences from simple written instructions.

This move reflects Saudi Arabia’s ongoing strategy of investing in high-profile gaming companies, following acquisitions of Niantic (Pokémon Go), Scopely (Monopoly Go), and the planned purchase of Electronic Arts, one of the world’s largest game publishers.