Cover-Credits:
BGMI
Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) is perhaps the most popular game in India thanks to its huge community and great graphics. The game's simple features and gameplay make it suitable for both young and old gamers, making it appealing to a large crowd.
As a result, the game has quite a large fanbase as evidenced by the sheer number of people that turn up to live esports tournaments or even BGMI streams on YouTube or other live stream platforms.
How many fans does BGMI have?
Last year, BGMI was banned due to privacy concerns. Its popularity among players and viewers did not dwindle during the prohibition period. After the ban was lifted in May 2023, the esports scene and viewership skyrocketed.
Sean Hyunil Sohn, CEO, KRAFTON, Inc. India had said that, “We at Krafton are very humbled by the love we have received for BGMI in less than two years of launching it in the country. The title achieved a remarkable milestone by surpassing 100 million cumulative users shortly after a year of its launch. Since its inception, BGMI has contributed significantly to building a robust Esports ecosystem in the country by providing India-centric events and content. BGMI made history by becoming the first Esports event to be broadcasted on mainstream television attracting 24 million concurrent viewers and a total of 200 million viewers.”
As of August 2023, BGMI has over 100 million downloads on Android devices as a large number of its players tend to have android smartphones. The number of downloads on iOS is unknown, but it is projected to be large because esports athletes often utilize iOS smartphones to practice and compete in tournaments.
With 537,849 viewers, the BGMI launch party event after its release in 2021 saw the highest viewership. The first official tournament after the game's release was BGIS 2021, which had 460,034 viewers. Battlegrounds Mobile India Pro Series Season 2 was one of the highlight events, with 304,709 viewers tuning in. Krafton had to expand the number of invited teams in the recently concluded Battlegrounds Mobile India Series 2023 The Grind due to an increase in the player base.
Here are the viewership stats of BGMI tournaments according to Esports charts:
So, if we consider every single player who has played the game, a fan, then BGMI has over 100 Million fans just on Android devices.
With BGMI tournaments now being broadcasted on television through prominent sports broadcasters like Star Sports, this figure can be expected to expand even more.
Since its unban in May 2023, the player base in BGMI has expanded significantly. Not only has the number of gamers expanded, but so has the number of esports athletes. Thousands of teams and players took part in the recently concluded Battlegrounds Mobile India Series (BGIS) 2023 in-game qualifiers.
