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Mobile gaming
Tech

Further Indian ban on Chinese games like PUBG Mobile unlikely to hurt companies much, experts say

  • Tencent’s PUBG Mobile, the top-grossing mobile game in India, escaped a recent ban of 59 Chinese apps in China
  • But even a further ban looming on the horizon is unlikely to be a major threat to most Chinese gaming companies, experts say

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Screengrab from Peacekeeper Elite, the China-specific version of PUBG Mobile. Image: Tencent
Josh Ye
When India issued a sweeping ban of 59 Chinese apps last month after a deadly border clash between the nuclear-armed neighbours, many gamers were relieved to find that PUBG Mobile was not on the list.
Although two other popular Chinese mobile games – Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Clash of Kings – were blocked, Tencent Holdings’ smash hit, whose full name is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Mobile, was spared.

This relief may be short-lived, however, as the blockbuster game is now among 275 more Chinese apps Indian regulators are scrutinising for national security and user privacy violations, according to a report by English-language Indian newspaper The Economic Times on Monday.

As India moves to edge out Chinese tech influence in the country, Chinese gaming companies risk losing access to about 300 million online gamers in India, according to estimates by German data provider Statista for financial year 2019.

But while the recent developments in India may have hurt some Chinese tech companies or frustrated their plans to expand in the country, a further ban is unlikely to be a major threat to most gaming companies, analysts told the Post.

“India accounts for just a small fraction of the global games market, at about just 1 per cent of the more than US$150 billion of global games sales, so for large global publishers the market has a small influence on their overall results,” Matthew Kanterman, a research analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence, said.

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