The invention is applicable to the technical field of mobile terminals, and provides a real-time message display control method of an instant messaging application and a mobile terminal. The method comprises the following steps: monitoring a multi-contact session of the instant messaging application; when a red packet message is monitored to be received in the multi-contact session, shielding and caching other received real-time messages excluding the red packet message in the multi-contact session; and when preset conditions are satisfied, reading the cached other real-time messages, and displaying the other real-time messages in a real-time message list of the multi-contact session. In the real-time message display control method provided by the invention, in the case of a red packet grabbing event in the instant messaging application, the received real-time messages in the multi-contact session are temporarily shielded, so that a user can quickly locate the red packet message in the real-time message list of the multi-contact session, and thus the response speed to the red packet message is improved.