Tencent’s Stock Dropped More Than 2% After India Banned PUBG Mobile: Tencent’s stock dropped more than 2% after India banned its famous gaming app PUBG Mobile and other Tencent apps such as Tencent Weiyun, WeChat Reading, WeChat Work, and PUBG Mobile Lite. Tencent 0700 is a Chinese gaming and social media behemoth. On Thursday, Hong Kong’s stock dropped more than 2% after India banned 118 smartphone applications, including the company’s famous videogame PUBG. Tencent share in pubg also dropped because of this.
In the afternoon, the market was trading 2.2 percent lower at HK$533, putting an end to two consecutive sessions of gains. Baidu BIDU.O and Xiaomi’s 1810 are among the 118 mainly Chinese applications on the list. Following a standoff with Beijing at the border, India increased pressure on Chinese technology companies, according to HK ShareSave. Tencent Holdings’ shares closed 2.02 percent lower at HK$534 on Thursday, according to data from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX).
The Indian government suspended 118 Chinese origin applications on Wednesday, following the June 29 ban of Tencent’s messaging service WeChat, which was then formally barred from sending or receiving messages by Indian users on July 25. This is Tencent’s second-largest drop in market share after a ban in key markets such as the United States and India. According to a Bloomberg study, Tencent’s market capitalization fell by $35 billion between late July and early August.
A blanket ban in India is a major setback for the gaming behemoth, as India has become the source of the most PUBG smartphone downloads. To note, India accounted for 24% of all PUBG downloads (734 million) before June, or 175 million. For the uninitiated, PUBG was created by the Korean gaming group Bluehole, with Tencent developing the smartphone version. Tencent owns a ten percent interest in the parent company of PUBG.
According to data intelligence platform Sensor Tower, India was the biggest contributor for PUBG smartphone downloads in August, with 29.8% or 4.38 million downloads out of a total of 14.7 million. China, Turkey, Russia, and Egypt completed the top five charts. China continued to lead in sales, accounting for almost 60% of PUBG’s $154.5 million in August. In August, India contributed just 1% of total sales, or $1.5 million.
Though India may not have been a big source of revenue for successful Chinese mobile apps such as TikTok and PUBG, the country did catalyze the two’s valuation. Before the Narendra Modi-led government banned TikTok and PUBG due to escalating border tensions between the two neighbors, they had over 650 million and 185 million installs, respectively. The list of 118 mainly Chinese applications includes Baidu and Xiaomi’s ShareSave, as India increased pressure on Chinese technology companies following a border standoff with Beijing.
