According to an anonymous source cited by the report, “PUBG is in early conversation with Airtel for handing over distribution rights to the telecom giant. This desperation shows that PUBG has been trying hard to get back into the Indian market”. Neither PUBG Corp, nor Airtel, has issued any official statement on the matter, but we should expect to hear more sooner rather than later. The report comes just days after new data from Sensor Tower suggested that PUBG Mobile downloads have fallen precipitously since it was banned in India last month. According to the report, the game garnered around 10.7 million downloads globally in September, a 26.7% fall from 14.6 million in August. However, the drastic reduction in downloads doesn’t seem to have affected PUBG Corp’s bottomline yet, given that in spite of the massive user-base, India contributes relatively little to the company’s overall earnings, which are dominated by China, the US and Japan. That said, the country remains an important market for the game, which is why its developers are looking to distance itself from Tencent and are searching for an Indian partner to reenter the Indian market. However, now that the discussions with Jio have reportedly hit a dead-end, it will be interesting to see if Airtel will be able to bring back the popular game in all its glory.
