News Update

Krafton’s BGMI Receives Full Approval for Operations in India After Successful Audit

• ByStartupStory     |    September 2, 2023

Krafton, the South Korean gaming giant, has reportedly received full approval from the Indian government to operate its popular battle royale game, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), following a successful three-month audit, according to sources familiar with the matter. This development is expected to bring relief to one of the top-grossing games in the country.

The sources indicate that BGMI will now be subject to quarterly assessments. Moneycontrol has reached out to Krafton for further details and will update the story when a response is received.

This development follows a similar return to the Indian market by Free Fire, a rival battle royale game from Singapore tech giant Sea’s gaming arm Garena, after being suspended for about one and a half years.

Krafton initially secured approval from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to relaunch the India-only app BGMI on a three-month trial basis in May 2023. This decision came nearly 10 months after the game was suspended from Google Play and Apple App Store following a government order.

On May 19, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the trial approval came after the game complied with issues of server locations and data security among others. “We will keep a close watch on other issues of User harm, addiction, etc. in the next 3 months before a final decision is taken,” he said at the time.

Both BGMI and Free Fire were among the highest-grossing Android apps in India until their suspensions last year. After its return in May 2023, BGMI once again claimed the top spot on the list of highest-grossing Android apps in India on the Google Play Store. Industry insiders estimate the app’s annual revenue to be around $100 million.

Garena, following Krafton’s lead, introduced an India-exclusive app called ‘Free Fire India,’ set to be available for download from September 5. The company also continues to offer the premium variant ‘Free Fire Max,’ which was not suspended by Indian authorities.

To address data concerns, Garena partnered with Yotta, a Hiranandani Group company and a MeitY empaneled cloud service provider, for local cloud hosting and storage infrastructure for Free Fire India. Yotta will manage Indian users’ personal data on local servers and network connectivity services to support Garena’s product offerings in India, including esports.

Garena has also signed an agreement with the Uttar Pradesh government to drive the development of esports in India.

Meanwhile, Krafton has made significant investments in backing local startups in India’s gaming and interactive entertainment sector over the past couple of years, with a pledge of an additional $150 million over the next two to three years.

India is considered the fastest-growing games market in Asia in terms of revenue and gamers, with mobile and PC gaming revenue projected to have reached $704.5 million in 2022, according to Niko Partners, a market research and consulting firm. This figure is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 21.1 percent over the next five years, reaching $1.4 billion in 2026. These projections do not include revenue generated by real money games.

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