No hero comes close to him in terms of popularity or crowd pulling ability in this region. Dookudu has set a new landmark for this region showing that there is so much untapped market for Telugu films in overseas. We can compare him to Shahrukh Khan especially in this area.
SRK proved he is undisputed king in overseas with numerous instances and Mahesh is following the suit. Stars like Salman Khan are kings in India but couldn't come close to Shahrukh in overseas. Same is happening with stars like Jr NTR here. We have to wait and see if Pawan Kalyan, who was once a big crowd puller in this region could bounce back and match up with Mahesh or not.