PUBG Mobile was one of the Chinese apps that India had banned in June 2020 following border hostilities with China.
Krafton launched Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which is similar to PUBG, last year. Since the launch, BGMI has hit 100 million registered users, Changhan Kim said.
“It was unfortunate that PUBG Mobile was banned in India. After the ban, we made tremendous efforts and launched BGMI last July, which has been curated specifically for the Indian audience,” Kim said.
Krafton has become an active investor in media, gaming, and entertainment startups.
In the last one year, it has deployed $100 million across seven startups, including Pratilipi, Nodwin Gaming, and Kuku FM.
Discover the stories of your interest
“While BGMI is performing well in India, we are also focused on the IP, media, and entertainment sector as a whole for holistic growth. We expect that overall investments in the rest of 2022 and next year will be equal to or larger than $100 million,” he said.
Despite the downturn in the global and Indian financial market, Krafton will support existing portfolio companies. “We also think that it’s a good chance to score good deals in this market,” Kim added.
ETtechThe Korean Stock Exchange-listed company posted $405.7 million in quarterly revenue, according to its consolidated financial statements for the first quarter of this year.
This was a record high revenue for any quarter, up 17.8% quarter-over-quarter and 13.5% higher year-over-year.
International markets (outside South Korea) drove 95% of its first-quarter revenue this year. BGMI has sustained an uptrend of market share and sales in India, it said.
“I cannot say that the sales efficiency is really great compared to the number of users in India. I think we’re witnessing in India a similar circumstance that we have seen with the Chinese market 15 years ago. We are also putting our utmost efforts to become the most beloved game in the long term rather than focusing on short-term profit,” Kim said.
The success of crypto play-to-earn (P2E) games like Axie Infinity has led to the emergence of multiple startups in the sector. Additionally, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are seen as tools fuelling the in-game economy by several in the Web3 and gaming industry.
Kim said NFTs, metaverse, augmented and virtual reality gaming are technologies that are worth exploring but the company is not solely looking to focus on Web3 gaming.
In India, mobile gaming and sports media platform
is planning a foray into Web3 gaming. Similarly, sports NFT startups like Fancraze and Rario are looking at gaming to expand the utility of their NFTs.
While Krafton may explore Web3 to enrich the user experience, Kim said its focus will remain on gaming.
“People are talking a lot about the P2E concept. But that is not the direction that Krafton will take. Games should be fun to play, not a thing to do to earn something. We think that there are certain areas where game production technologies can have synergistic effects with Web3 technologies,” Kim said. “…lots of gaming companies have their own idea about it, in terms of interoperability, I think will take a long time to get there,” he added.
Krafton appointed Sean Hyunil Sohn as CEO of its India operations.
The company also plans to increase its workforce by 40-50% in the next one year.
“We are hiring at the management side. Given the size and scale of BGMI, we need to hire more talent and are hiring for marketing, management, and e-sports to localize efforts,” Kim said.
