Battlegrounds Mobile India clocks 50 million downloads

Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) has clocked 50 million downloads on Google Play in about 1-1/2 months after the game’s launch, its developer Krafton Inc. said on Aug. 16.

Krafton on July 2 released the blockbuster title developed exclusively for the country with 1.4 billion population. Within a week of the launch, BGMI attracted 34 million cumulative users, up to 16 million players a day and 2.4 million simultaneous users, driving the online game box office from the beginning.

To allure more users, the South Korean game developer of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) opened Battlegrounds Mobile India Series 2021, an esports tournament in July, with a total prize of 10 million Indian rupee ($134,472). More than 540,000 players flocked to the preliminary round.

Krafton is trying to expand online business in India, having invested $70 million in the local tech companies so far this year.

Earlier this month, Krafton appointed Sean Hyunil Sohn, head of the investment division, as a chief executive officer of PUBG India Pvt. Ltd. 

“The Indian gaming market is at the beginning of its development, so it has great potential for expansion, and the interest of users in games and entertainment is high, so we believe that to be a market of opportunities,” Sohn said in a statement on Aug. 6. “We plan to expand Krafton's IP (intellectual property) and gaming experience to more countries by targeting emerging markets from India to the Middle East and Africa.”

PUBG India, established in November 2020, has been in charge of direct sales of Battlegrounds Mobile.

India prohibited 118 Chinese smartphone applications including the game title, citing data privacy concerns. But industry sources said the South Asian country took the measure as a revenge amid a border dispute between the two nations. Battlegrounds Mobile was hit by the ban since Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings handled the game’s sales in the country, according to the sources.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.