The Covid-19 pandemic has decreased the ways of getting entertained. The internet has been one of the mediums for people to remain entertained while sitting at home. People are turning to games like PUBG Mobile to keep themselves busy.
Smartphone users were badly affected as a result of the ban PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite and 116 other apps by Indian government under Section 69A of Information Technology Act.
The after-effects of the ban has been such that PUBG Mobile slipped around 7 places to tenth spot this year in Q3 in terms of game download compared to the last quarter.
Senior Tower stated that India constitutes 185.5 million or 24% of total downloads of PUBG Mobile which is the highest in the world. Mobile game installations increased to 28% year on year previous quarter to 14.2 billion in Q3 across app stores.
Many installations were done from Google Play Store which increased to 36.8% from 8.7 billion in the third quarter of 2019 to 11.9 billion in Q3. App store installations decreased to 4.2% from 2.4 billion in 2019 to 2.3 billion this year. The decrease was largely in China and installations increased in other parts of the world.
Sensor Tower said that the online multiplayer game, Among Us by Innersloth topped the lists for the third quarter. The game was installed more than 13 times compared to the third quarter of 2019.
Among Us had around 85 million downloads in the month of August and September on smartphones. It is leading in Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
The 2nd and 3rd spots were taken by Scribble Rider from Voodoo and My Talking Tom Friends by Outfit 7 Limited. Both the games were launched earlier this year. Garena Free Fire which is a battle royale game made it to top five but its installations has declined 5% year by year.