EkaLore has released our analysis and notes India’s electronics and mobile gaming markets. In this release, we look at the recent changes in regulatory bans previously covering Krafton’s mobile game “Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).”
EkaLore analyzes the conflicts Dynamic India sees when foreign direct investment conflicts with political considerations and regulatory rules. The path forward isn’t always clear as the complex nature of foreign direct investment in technology-based products clearly conflicts with regulatory rules and politically sensitive areas.
Indian regulators approved allowing BGMI to operate again on a trial basis for a 90-day trial. This is a change after a ban was imposed at the end of July 2022. The Indian Government Ministry of IT had reviewed changes made by Krafton to come into compliance with regulations on data residency in India and data security. Changes made include ‘rehosting’ the cloud-computing-based game to Microsoft Azure from Chinese servers and reducing the role of Tencent (China).
The July 2022 ban (along with many other Chinese-backed software apps like TikTok and titles) was put into effect as per regulations from Section 69A of the Indian IT Act. When it was banned, the BGMI game was the #1 title for mobile gaming with more than 50,000,000 monthly users, with 100,000,000 cumulative users a year after its launch, with an eSports broadcast watched by 200,000,000 total viewers with a peak of 24,000,000 concurrent viewers. BGMI produced outstanding usage web statistics, downloads, and likely substantial payments for downloads of in-game content. Some reports claimed BGMI was taking in more revenue than Netflix or Tinder. (To Be continued)
Later this week, we’ll finish up our piece on Krafton – You can find it and other pieces about Dynamic India at www.ekalore.com/india-business
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