Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was the best-selling video game in the United States in 2024, extending Call of Duty’s reign as the country’s No. 1 franchise by dollar sales to a record 16 straight years (Circana). One year later the crown slipped: Black Ops 7 finished 2025 at No. 5, Call of Duty’s lowest annual ranking since 2008. Even so, the premium series has sold roughly 500 million units for about 30 billion dollars in lifetime gross (Statista), Warzone crossed 100 million players inside 13 months (Activision), and Call of Duty: Mobile has topped 650 million downloads. Against a global games market worth 188.8 billion dollars in 2025 (Newzoo), Call of Duty remains one of the industry’s largest single properties. This analysis consolidates data from Circana, Microsoft, Sensor Tower, Activision, Esports Charts, and 7 other primary sources, current to July 13, 2026.
TL;DR
- The premium Call of Duty series had sold about 500 million units by October 2024, for roughly 30 billion dollars lifetime gross (Statista, 2024).
- Activision last reported around 90 million monthly players, with more than half on mobile (Activision Blizzard, 2023).
- The shared Call of Duty app on Steam holds an all-time peak of 488,897 concurrent players (Steam Charts).
- Warzone reached 100 million players in just 13 months after its March 2020 launch (Activision, 2021).
- Call of Duty: Mobile has topped 650 million downloads (Activision, via VGC, 2024).
- Call of Duty: Mobile surpassed 1.5 billion dollars in lifetime player spending on App Store and Google Play (Sensor Tower, 2022).
- The 2025 Call of Duty League Championship grand final peaked at 353,525 concurrent viewers, a league record (Esports Charts, 2025).
- More than 2 million accounts have been actioned for disruptive voice chat, with repeat offenders down 67% since June 2024 (Activision, 2024).
- Microsoft Gaming generated 21.5 billion dollars in fiscal 2025 (Microsoft, 2025).
- Verdansk’s return pushed Steam concurrency to 138,335 in April 2025 (GameSpot, 2025).
- Microsoft called Black Ops 6 the biggest Call of Duty launch ever, setting day-one and Game Pass records (Microsoft, 2024).
1. Franchise scale and lifetime sales
Call of Duty is a two-decade compounding machine. The premium series crossed roughly 500 million lifetime units in October 2024, up from 400 million just three years earlier (Statista) - a 25% jump driven almost entirely by the modern reboots. Those unit counts deliberately exclude the free-to-play Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile, so the audience touching the brand each year is far larger than the sales figure implies. For franchise context alongside the broader business, see our gaming industry statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime premium units sold (as of Oct 2024) | ~500 million | Statista, Call of Duty lifetime unit sales 2024 |
| Lifetime franchise gross revenue | ~$30 billion | Statista, 2024 |
| Premium units sold (400M milestone, Apr 2021) | 400 million | Activision (Call of Duty), 2021 |
| Best-selling entry, Black Ops III | ~43 million units | 2024 court filing, via Statista/reporting |
| Modern Warfare (2019) | ~41 million units | 2024 court filing, via reporting |
| Black Ops Cold War | 30 million+ units | Reporting, 2024 |
| Monthly players (last disclosed) | ~90 million, >50% mobile | Activision Blizzard, Q2 2023 8-K |
| First title released | 2003 | Statista |
Note: unit-sales rankings above come from figures entered into a 2024 court filing during the Microsoft-Activision proceedings, the most granular per-title data publicly available.
2. Player base and concurrency
Concurrency data tells a spikier story than the headline install base. Verdansk’s return to Warzone drove the Steam client to 138,335 concurrent players on April 6, 2025 - the highest PC figure in over a year and a roughly 200% jump within hours of the update (GameSpot). Those surges sit well below the all-time Steam peak set in 2022, and they capture only a slice of the audience, since PlayStation, Xbox, and Battle.net players are not publicly tallied.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| All-time Steam peak concurrent (Nov 2022) | 488,897 | Steam Charts |
| Black Ops 6 launch peak, shared CoD app (Nov 3, 2024) | ~315,000 | SteamDB, via Game World Observer (2024) |
| Verdansk return peak, Steam (Apr 6, 2025) | 138,335 | GameSpot, 2025 |
| Player jump within hours of Verdansk return | +200% | GameSpot / Insider Gaming, 2025 |
| Steam monthly average concurrent (mid-2026) | ~30,000 | Steam Charts, 2026 |
| Warzone players reached in 13 months (by Apr 2021) | 100 million | Activision, 2021 |
| Warzone players in first 24 hours (2020) | 6 million | Activision, 2021 |
| Warzone players in first month (2020) | 50 million | Activision, 2021 |
Note: Steam figures cover only the PC client, and Black Ops 6 and 7 run through the shared Call of Duty app rather than separate counters. SteamDB and GameSpot cite the all-time Steam peak at about 491,670, slightly above Steam Charts’ 488,897.
3. US sales charts and market position (Circana)
The 2024-to-2025 swing is the sharpest reversal in the franchise’s chart history. Black Ops 7 topped the US charts in December 2025 yet finished the full year at only #5, Call of Duty’s lowest annual ranking since 2008’s World at War (Circana). For the first time, a rival - Battlefield 6 - led the annual US chart outright, ending Call of Duty’s long streak at the top. The franchise still owns December, having led that month for seven consecutive years.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Best-selling US game of 2024 | Black Ops 6 (#1) | Circana, via GameSpot |
| CoD as #1 US franchise by dollar sales | 16 consecutive years | Circana, 2024 |
| Best-selling US game, full-year 2025 | Battlefield 6 (#1) | Circana, 2025 |
| Black Ops 7, full-year 2025 rank | #5 (lowest since 2008) | Circana / Mat Piscatella, via GameSpot |
| Black Ops 7, December 2025 rank | #1 | Circana, via GameDev Reports, 2025 |
| CoD topping US December charts | 7 consecutive years | Circana, 2025 |
Note: the full-year 2025 US top five ran Battlefield 6, NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4, Monster Hunter Wilds, then Black Ops 7 (Circana). Analysts attribute part of Call of Duty’s softer purchase numbers to day-one Game Pass availability shifting spend into subscriptions.
4. Call of Duty: Mobile
Mobile is where Call of Duty reaches its widest audience, even if spending has cooled from its peak. Call of Duty: Mobile surpassed 1.5 billion dollars in lifetime player spending across the App Store and Google Play, and topped 650 million downloads - the United States alone accounted for about 647 million dollars of that spend (Sensor Tower; Activision). The game remains a top-tier mobile shooter globally, though its revenue peak was in the early 2020s.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime player spending (App Store + Google Play) | $1.5 billion+ | Sensor Tower, 2022 |
| Lifetime downloads (as of mid-2024) | 650 million | Activision, via VGC, 2024 |
| Downloads in first week (Oct 2019) | 100 million+ | Sensor Tower, 2019 |
| Downloads milestone (May 2021) | 500 million | Activision, 2021 |
| US share of player spending | ~$647 million (~43%) | Sensor Tower, 2022 |
| Lifetime revenue by 2023 | $2 billion | Reporting, via VGC |
| Global grossing rank among mobile titles (2021) | No. 14 | Sensor Tower, 2021 |
Note: Sensor Tower’s most recent publicly cited spending milestone dates to 2022, and Activision’s 650 million download figure is from mid-2024 - both flagged as the most recent available.
5. Call of Duty League and esports
Competitive Call of Duty grew on the metrics that matter even as its schedule tightened. The 2025 Call of Duty League Championship grand final between OpTic Texas and Vancouver Surge peaked at 353,525 concurrent viewers, the highest in league history, with weekend average viewership up more than 20% year-over-year (Esports Charts). Co-streaming roughly doubled versus 2024, and international viewership expanded following stops in Madrid, Berlin, and Toronto. For the wider competitive picture, see our esports statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 Championship grand final peak viewers | 353,525 | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| 2025 Championship weekend average viewers | 158,000 (+20% YoY) | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| 2025 Championship hours watched | 3.78 million | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| Stage 1 Major (Madrid) peak viewers | 233,789 | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| Stage 1 Major average viewers | 113,205 | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| Stage 2 Major average viewers | 121,815 | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| Grand final viewers from outside the US | 15%+ | Esports Charts, 2025 |
Note: total Championship hours watched dipped slightly versus 2024, which Esports Charts attributes to a more condensed match schedule rather than falling interest.
6. Voice chat moderation and toxicity
Call of Duty runs one of the largest published voice-moderation programs in gaming, which makes its enforcement data a rare public window into voice-chat toxicity at scale. More than 2 million accounts had been actioned for disruptive voice chat by October 2024, and repeat offenders fell 67% after improved enforcement rolled out in June 2024 (Activision). The system uses AI voice moderation (ToxMod, from Modulate) to flag Code of Conduct violations rather than specific keywords. For the cross-game view, see our voice chat toxicity statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts actioned for disruptive voice chat (by Oct 2024) | 2 million+ | Activision (Call of Duty), 2024 |
| Reduction in repeat voice-chat offenders (since Jun 2024) | 67% | Activision, 2024 |
| Enforced players who did not re-offend (Jul 2024) | 80% | Activision, 2024 |
| Drop in exposure to disruptive voice chat (since Jan 2024) | 43% | Activision, 2024 |
| Accounts restricted from voice/text chat (Aug 2023 report) | 1 million+ | Activision (Call of Duty), 2023 |
| Players not reoffending after a first warning (2023) | 20% | Activision, 2023 |
| Voice-moderation languages at Black Ops 6 launch | 5 (EN, ES, PT, FR, DE) | Activision, 2024 |
Note: the 2 million and 1 million account figures come from Activision’s own periodic anti-toxicity reports and cover Modern Warfare III and Warzone globally, excluding Asia.
7. Microsoft ownership and Game Pass
Since the acquisition closed, Call of Duty has been the single biggest driver of Microsoft’s gaming line. Xbox content and services revenue jumped 61% year-over-year in the first quarter after the deal, with 53 percentage points of that growth attributed directly to Activision Blizzard (Microsoft). Full-year gaming revenue reached 21.5 billion dollars even as Xbox hardware fell, underscoring how much the software and subscription mix now carries the segment. For hardware context, see our console market statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Gaming revenue, FY2025 | $21.5 billion | Microsoft Investor Relations, FY2025 |
| Xbox content and services growth, Q1 FY2025 | +61% YoY | Microsoft, FY25 Q1 |
| Net impact of Activision Blizzard on that growth | 53 points | Microsoft, FY25 Q1 |
| Activision Blizzard acquisition price | $68.7 billion | Microsoft (closed Oct 2023) |
| Xbox hardware revenue change, FY2025 | -25% | Microsoft, FY2025 |
| Xbox Game Pass subscribers (Q1 FY2026) | 40 million+ | Microsoft, 2025 |
| Black Ops 6 launch | Biggest CoD release ever; record day-one and Game Pass adds | Microsoft (Nadella), via Windows Central, 2024 |
Note: Xbox content and services grew 16% for full-year FY2025 while hardware fell 25%, per Microsoft, reflecting the post-acquisition shift toward software and subscriptions.
Summary: Call Of Duty by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime premium units sold (Oct 2024) | ~500 million | Statista, 2024 |
| Lifetime franchise gross revenue | ~$30 billion | Statista, 2024 |
| Best-selling entry, Black Ops III | ~43 million units | 2024 court filing |
| Modern Warfare (2019) units | ~41 million | 2024 court filing |
| Monthly players (last disclosed) | ~90 million, >50% mobile | Activision Blizzard, 2023 |
| Steam all-time peak concurrent | 488,897 | Steam Charts |
| Verdansk return peak, Steam (Apr 2025) | 138,335 | GameSpot, 2025 |
| Warzone players in first 13 months | 100 million | Activision, 2021 |
| Best-selling US game of 2024 | Black Ops 6 | Circana, 2024 |
| CoD as #1 US franchise (dollar sales) | 16 consecutive years | Circana, 2024 |
| Black Ops 7, full-year 2025 US rank | #5 (lowest since 2008) | Circana, 2026 |
| Call of Duty: Mobile lifetime spending | $1.5 billion+ | Sensor Tower, 2022 |
| Call of Duty: Mobile downloads | 650 million | Activision, via VGC, 2024 |
| CDL Championship 2025 peak viewers | 353,525 | Esports Charts, 2025 |
| Accounts actioned for disruptive voice chat | 2 million+ | Activision, 2024 |
| Repeat voice-chat offenders reduction | 67% | Activision, 2024 |
| Microsoft Gaming revenue, FY2025 | $21.5 billion | Microsoft, 2025 |
| Xbox Game Pass subscribers | 40 million+ | Microsoft, 2025 |
| Activision Blizzard acquisition price | $68.7 billion | Microsoft, 2023 |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by aggregating figures from company filings and investor materials, official Call of Duty and Activision reports, market trackers with disclosed methodologies, and trade press reporting traced back to those primary sources, prioritizing 2025-2026 disclosures.
- Circana - U.S. video game market monthly and end-of-year reports (2024, 2025), reported via GameSpot and GameDev Reports.
- Microsoft - FY2025 earnings, More Personal Computing performance, Investor Relations (2025).
- Statista - Call of Duty lifetime unit sales and franchise facts (2024).
- Activision / Call of Duty - Anti-Toxicity Progress Reports (Aug 2023, Oct 2024); Warzone and sales milestones (Apr 2021).
- Activision Blizzard - Q2 2023 earnings (8-K), roughly 90 million monthly players.
- Sensor Tower - Call of Duty: Mobile lifetime player spending (2022).
- Video Games Chronicle - Call of Duty: Mobile 650 million downloads, reporting Activision (2024).
- Steam Charts / SteamDB - Call of Duty concurrent player data (accessed July 2026).
- Esports Charts - Call of Duty League 2025 viewership (2025).
- Newzoo - Global Games Market Report 2025.
- GameSpot - Circana reporting and Verdansk Steam record (2025-2026).
- Windows Central - Xbox FY25 Q1 gaming revenue, reporting Microsoft (2024).
Data watch: Circana publishes US market data monthly, with the full-year 2026 recap due in January 2027; Microsoft reports quarterly, with FY2026 Q4 earnings expected in late July 2026; Newzoo issues its Global Games Market Report annually; Activision publishes anti-toxicity progress reports periodically; and Esports Charts reports per event, with the Call of Duty League 2026 season ongoing.
Last updated: July 13, 2026.
We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.