Tesla, PUBG Mobile Partnership Puts Cars, Semis In Game: Why It's Important For China, India

One of the largest mobile games in the world partnered with Tesla Inc TSLA to feature the well-known electric vehicle automaker. The deal could help boost Tesla’s profile internationally and lead to feature gaming partnerships.

Tesla, PUBG Partnership: A new partnership between PUBG Mobile and Tesla is part of an update for the popular mobile game, highlighted by Electrek recently. A new game mode called “Mission Ignition” will feature the following exclusive Tesla content:

• Tesla Gigafactory: Activate assembly line switches to start the process to build the Tesla Model Y.
• Model Y & Self-Driving: Use autopilot mode to travel to pre-set locations on the highway inside the Tesla vehicle.
• Tesla Semi: Randomly spawn Tesla Semis appear on the road and feature autonomous driving. Deal damage to the Tesla Semi to make it drop random supply crates.

Why It’s Important: PUBG Mobile is one of the largest mobile games hitting $5.1 billion in lifetime sales earlier this year. PUBG Mobile had average daily revenue of $7.4 million in 2020.

PUBG Mobile had revenue of $2.7 billion in 2020, with huge growth in usage during the pandemic.

China is the game’s largest market with $2.8 billion in lifetime revenue. The success of PUBG Mobile could help boost brand awareness in China.

PUBG Mobile is also widely popular in India, a market that Tesla sees as the next area of growth. PUBG Mobile faced a ban in the country in 2020 but the company stuck with it. PUBG launched a new business called PUBG India Private Limited which recently launched the revamped Battlegrounds Mobile game.

Battleground Mobile launched on July 2 in India and has more than 34 million registered users, 16 million daily active users and hit a peak of 2.4 million concurrent users according to Eurogamer.

Related Link: Baseball Superstar Shohei Ohtani Drives A Tesla, Could That Help The Company In Japan?

What’s Next: Tesla is working on a Tesla Arcade to offer video games in its cars. The Tesla Arcade could be offered as an app store in the future allowing users to purchase games or downloadable content or as a premium offering from Tesla.

“Entertainment will be critical when cars drive themselves,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said previously.

PUBG Mobile is one of several video game companies owned by Tencent Holdings ADR TCEHY. The partnership with PUBG Mobile could lead to Tesla featured in other games in the future or Tesla getting Tencent-owned games in the Tesla Arcade.

Games owned by Tencent or its subsidiaries include League of Legends, Fortnite and Honor of Kings.

Tencent is also a large shareholder in Tesla with a 5% stake reported back in 2017.

TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares are down 2.27% to $653.38 on Wednesday.