PUBG JIO Partnership: PUBG, PUBG, PUBG. September, or rather ‘Techtember’, saw a plethora of launches from LG launching a swivelling phone to Xiaomi announcing a Doraemon edition of their Mi 10. But the month was also shadowed by India-China’s political issues affecting the tech industry as the Indian government announced a ban on 118 China apps (now over 200) that included PUBG Mobile.
PUBG Ban in India: Reliance Jio to the rescue?
PUBG Mobile’s ban saw a large chunk of angry Indian players leaving the game, PUBG Mobile’s one-fourth playing force. Some even linked Activision’s separation with Tencent to this ban.
Even though India accounts for only 1.2% revenue of PUBG Mobile, the ban hit Tencent very hard. In just two days after the ban, Tencent’s market value fell $34 Billion.
In about a week after the ban, PUBG Corporation (the main desktop game developer), announced that it is looking for a new partner in India. Well, as per a new report from The Business Line, Reliance Jio has emerged as a leading contender for gane’s publishing rights in India.
Could PUBG Jio Partnership Save The Day?
As per the report, the talks between Reliance Jio and PUBG Corporation have reached a stage where revenue sharing and localization have been discussed between the officials from both sides. A new source has also reported that “Legal experts from both sides are exploring possibilities on how revenues should be split, whether it would be 50:50 or Jio guaranteeing PUBG revenues based on a fixed number of users every month.”
It remains to be seen if the PUBG Jio deal goes through, though we have no doubt in Ambani’s business capabilities, especially after Jio secured Billions of Rupees in funding.