IFTA 2026: India has voted. See the winners.

Krafton India’s lighter version of Battlegrounds Mobile India, now called BGMI Air, will launch on 10 December 2026 after crossing 14 million pre-registrations on Google Play. The game is a roughly 1 GB download aimed at players on entry-level phones or with little storage, and a closed beta opens in three cities before the full release.

Young couple on a sofa playing games on their smartphones

What Krafton announced

The launch date and the 14 million figure were reported on 4 November by Beebom and MobiGyaan, citing Krafton India’s announcement. BGMI Air will arrive in India on 10 December 2026 as a separate app that players install on its own, alongside the full BGMI game.

Before that, Krafton will run a closed beta from 20 to 24 November in selected regions, including Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. Selected players get early access and can send feedback to the developers ahead of launch. Krafton has said it will share details of pre-launch events and rewards on its official social media channels before the release date.

From Lite to Air

The game began life as BGMI Lite. Pre-registrations opened for Android users in India on the Google Play Store on 25 August 2026, with no release date at the time and no iOS timeline, the Free Press Journal reported. By 15 October, Krafton India said sign-ups had passed 10 million and renamed the game BGMI Air, according to Business Today and TelecomTalk.

The pace has picked up since. By our count, the first 10 million pre-registrations took about seven weeks, from 25 August to mid-October. The next 4 million or so came in under three weeks, between 15 October and 4 November. Both figures are Krafton’s own, rounded to the nearest milestone, so the exact daily rate is not known.

Built for budget phones

The pitch is simple: keep the core BGMI battle royale gameplay, shrink the app. Krafton India has described BGMI Air as a way to “retain the core gameplay experience” while offering a “lighter and more accessible option for players across the country”, Business Today reported. The initial download is about 1 GB, smaller than the standard BGMI client.

Existing BGMI players do not need to transfer or migrate their accounts to play.
The game is listed on Android only so far.
Krafton has not yet published official device or system requirements.

That last point matters for the target audience. One October report cited a 1.5 GB RAM minimum, but the figure has not been confirmed in Krafton’s later announcements, so buyers of very old phones should wait for the official list.

Why India matters to Krafton

BGMI is already one of the largest games in the country. In its first-quarter 2026 results, released on 30 April, Krafton said BGMI had passed 260 million downloads and that its paying users rose 17 per cent year on year. The company also said it has invested more than $250 million in Indian startups since 2021, PTI reported. For the full year 2025, Krafton said BGMI’s paying users grew 27 per cent, according to Outlook Respawn.

The wider market explains the push towards cheaper phones. The Game Developer Association of India’s GameDev Outlook 2026 report puts India’s video game revenue at $1.04 billion in 2025 from 511 million players, or about $2.04 per user a year, Outlook Respawn reported on 7 November. Hitwicket CEO Kashyap Reddy told the publication that spending is rising in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. A smaller app is one way to reach more of those players.

What to watch

The closed beta from 20 to 24 November will be the first public test of how BGMI Air actually runs on low-end hardware. Watch for:

Official device requirements, which will decide how many entry-level phones can run it.
Pre-launch rewards, which Krafton says it will announce on social media.
Day-one installs. A pre-registration is a sign-up, not a download, so the real test is how many of the 14 million install the game after 10 December.

Also open: whether an iOS version follows, and whether BGMI Air gets its own tournaments or stays a casual entry point into the main game.