Garena launches Free Fire India after 2022 ban

Photo credit: Garena

Garena, the gaming division of Sea Group, has relaunched Free Fire in India – with some tweaks.

For one, it is called Free Fire India and it is a localized version of the battle royale game. The original title was banned in the country in February last year due to data privacy concerns.

Garena has also partnered with Indian firm Yotta, a Hiranandani Group company, to provide local cloud hosting and storage infrastructure for the game.

Free Fire was pulled from Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store in India early 2022, along with 53 other apps. According to the Information and Technology Ministry of India, the banned apps collected sensitive data that was “misused and transmitted to servers located in [a] hostile country.”

The ban came amid geopolitical tensions between India and China, which culminated in another border clash between the countries’ troops in December 2022.

While Sea Group is a Singapore-based company, it does count Chinese tech titan Tencent as an investor.

The move mimics the release of Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) in 2021. BGMI is a localized version of the banned title – and Free Fire rival – PUBG Mobile, which is owned by South Korean game developer Krafton.

BGMI was eventually banned in July 2022 due to data-sharing concerns. However, this ban was lifted in May this year after the company addressed issues regarding server location and data security.

Nevertheless, Free Fire India‘s launch may spur much needed growth for Garena. Before the ban, Free Fire had 40 million monthly active users in India – more than half its global numbers at the time.

After the ban, Sea Group saw its market value drop by US$16 billion.

Garena has not recovered since then. In Q1 2023, Sea’s digital entertainment unit saw revenues plunge by 50% year on year, with adjusted EBITDA at its lowest since Q1 2019. In Q2 2023, the firm’s quarterly active users and paying users also experienced low double-digit growth.

Overall, Sea Group missed analyst estimates in Q2 this year, and Shopee – long subsidized by Garena – carried most of the financial weight.

With regards to Shopee, Free Fire India‘s launch may also reignite conversations around the ecommerce platform’s plans for the country. Shopee India launched in 2022, though it shuttered not long after the Free Fire ban.