Entertainment
‘Working to address this situation,’ says Garena after Free Fire got banned in India
Garena Free Fire, the popular battle royale game, was banned in India on February 14 along with 53 other apps by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The app was already missing from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store a day before news of the ban broke. Singapore-based developer Garena has now provided an update on the situation.
“We are aware that Free Fire is currently unavailable in the Google Play and iOS app stores in India and that the game is currently not operable for some users in the country,” Garena said in a statement. “We are working to address this situation, and we apologise to our users for any inconvenience,” it added.
Meanwhile, Free Fire MAX, the higher-graphic version of the popular game continues to be up on the Play Store, seemingly unaffected by the ban. Free Fire was one of India’s most downloaded games in 2021, according to an App Annie report. It had taken up the space created by PUBG Mobile after it was banned in September 2020.
In 2020, the government had also banned TikTok and other popular short video apps from China. When TikTok was banned on June 29, 2020, the list included around 59 apps in total. Other popular apps on the list were Shareit, Shein (the fashion website and app), Xiaomi Mi Community, Clash of Kings, Weibo, Likee, etc.
MeitY had banned the earlier apps under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, which states that the government has the “Power to issue directions for interception or monitoring or decryption of any information through any computer resource.”
Free Fire’s most recent statement suggests that the game could be back on the Play Store and App Store soon, but given that PUBG Mobile and TikTok are still banned.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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