Krafton’s BGMI Hits 40 Million Download In 2 Months, Creates Multiple Records

Krafton, South Korean gaming developer and company, has reportedly recorded over 40 million downloads for its free to play online game Battlegrounds Mobile India, or BGMI. This comes within just six weeks after the Indian government allowed the relaunch of the game in the country for a limited trial run. 

Several gamers like to call BGMI as a revamped or Indian version of the highly popular battle royale game PUBG Mobile. PUBG was banned in India back in September 2020 over cyber security issues. 

The 40 million downloads recorded by Krafton include new users as well as older users who have updated the game by downloading the app again since the title was off the stores for a long time due to the ban. 

As reported by App Annie data, BGMI currently stands at number 11 among overall games available on Google Play. Similarly, it is listed between 6-8 on Sensor Tower. 95 per cent of gamers in India use mobile devices for playing games. The remaining 5% are PCs and console users.

Krafton avoided commenting on details about the relaunch of the game post its ban. Apparently, Krafton is also the co-developer of the banned PUBG Mobile game, which is originally developed by Chinese company Tencent. PUBG Mobile along with 116 other Chinese apps was banned in India in September 2020. The government took the step with the fear that these China based apps might endanger India’s sovereignty. At the time of the ban, PUBG had over 180 million subscribers.

Last year in July, the Indian version of PUBG, BGMI, was also banned. It was one of the most popular games in the country with over 100 million downloads within just a year after its launch. The reason for BGMI’s ban was that it was speculated that the game was communicating directly or indirectly with multiple locations in China. This could have put Indian data at risk. 

At that time, Krafton appealed against the ban, to which the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) relented. However it allowed the game to relaunch for a three month trial run beginning May end. Currently the game is in the trial period. Once the three months of the trial period is over, the government and MEiTY will take the final decision on the future of the game in the country. Meanwhile, Indian players can continue playing BGMI.