With around 5 core active users, India was one of the biggest markets of PUBG Mobile in the world until the PUBG ban notice came in September. As a consequence of the India - China border dispute, more than 118 Chinese apps including PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite have been blocked in the country, which causes a huge loss to Tencent Games and PUBG Corp.
The effort of bringing PUBG Mobile back to India
Why the Indian government has no plan to unban the apps in the near future, PUBG Corp which is a subsidiary of Korena software company Bluehole is trying to make a way for the app to come back. According to the official announcement of the company, PUBG Corp will cut the publishing tie of Tencent Games in India and seek an Indian partner for the distribution of the game. In fact, speculations have been doing the rounds that PUBG Corp was looking for the cooperation with Indian biggest telecom company Reliance Jio. However, it seems like the two parties didn’t come to a deal as the game developer is now talking to another company - Bharti Airtel for the return of PUBG Mobile.
According to a close source, apart from bringing about the early conversation with Airtel, PUBG Corp is also in the process of setting their own ‘lean team’ in Indian. The company is leaving an open door for candidates who have at least 4-6 years of experience in program development. Regarding the discussion with Reliance Jio, the source revealed that it has been ‘shelved for good’.
Also read: Don't Want To Be Banned? Here Are 10 Things You Should Avoid While Playing PUBG Mobile!
A sharp fall of PUBG Mobile after being banned in India
Earlier, with the fear of cyber attack and security issues, the Indian government banned PUBG Mobile, PUBG Mobile Lites, and other Chinese apps amid the intense India - China border strike. Despite being owned by a Korean company, the two mobile versions of PUBG are published under the banner of Tencent Games, an acclaimed Chinese software developer. After the ban took effect, PUBG Mobile saw a sharp decrease in global growth as the app installs in September was 1.06 crore, fell by 26% in comparison to August with 1.47 crore. In fact, India is one of the major markets of PUBG Mobile in terms of downloads. The country shares one-thirds of the total downloads of the app within the last quarter.