How is MLBB growing in India in 2026?

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For most Indian players, shooters and battle royales have always been the favorites. Titles like PUBG, Call of Duty: Mobile and Free Fire consistently topped the charts, but MLBB is now pulling 32.4 million monthly active players in India and growing.

In particular, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) is growing stronger than ever, especially after the M7 World Championship which drew 5.68 million peak concurrent viewers in January 2026. Even though an Indian team was not in the finals, watch parties across India pulled tens of thousands of viewers.

Local creators began pulling large audiences just by reacting to high-level play, proving there was a sizable audience for MOBA content in the country.

How did India’s MOBA scene develop before the bans?

Now, it’s not that Indians never enjoyed playing MOBAs. Before everyone had a smartphone, the Indian competitive scene lived in dimly lit cyber cafes, and in the early 2010s, Dota 2 and the original DotA mod were the biggest games in the country.

If you were an esports pro in India back then, you were almost certainly a Dota player. It basically built the first real communities, rivalries and local LAN culture. However, with the rise of mobile use and as the internet became more accessible, cyber cafes eventually became less popular than they were.

As mobile devices became more accessible, inexpensive, yet powerful, India has started to get into mobile gaming. MLBB became one of the most popular games as the gameplay was simply reminiscent of Dota 2. Another popular MOBA was Arena of Valor.

However, in June 2020, the Indian government banned 59 Chinese apps, and MLBB was one of the biggest names on that list. A few months later, in September 2020, a second wave of bans took out 118 more apps, including Arena of Valor and PUBG Mobile.

While PUBG Mobile was able to return fairly quickly as BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India) by cutting ties with Tencent, the MOBA titles didn't have a clear local version ready, and this left the community in a legal grey area for years.

How did MLBB survive the ban while Arena of Valor did not?

Both MOBAs took different directions, and MLBB is the one that seems to have done something significant now that it has found a way to be available again in India.

The thing is that Moonton took a smart approach. Even though the game was banned in 2020, they never deleted the Indian player accounts. Fans kept playing through VPNs and unofficial versions.

When it finally returned in March 2026 as Moba Legends: 5v5! under the publisher Vizta Games, all those old accounts were still there. The fans just logged back in and picked up right where they left off.

AoV handled it poorly. They didn't preserve the Indian server data. When players tried to come back, they found their years of progress and skins were gone. Most of that community simply gave up and moved to other games, which is why you don't hear as much about Indian AoV in 2026.

How big is the MLBB scene in India in 2026?

The M7 World Championship in January 2026 was the catalyst. While Southeast Asia remains the primary viewership engine, India’s contribution to these global figures is growing, and the monthly active player count sits at roughly 32.4 million.

This surge in active players has forced the competitive scene to mature rapidly, and the entry of major Indian organizations like GodLike Esports and iQOO S8UL into the MOBA space has fueled the game’s popularity.

But aside from the M7 World Championship, there are also other tournaments that locals are following, like the MOBA Legends 5v5 Masters Series (MLMS) and the upcoming Esports World Cup in Riyadh this July. The game’s growing popularity has also attracted betting interest, with platforms like TheTopBookies now covering MLBB odds and live markets for Indian audiences.

Since there are more MLBB tournaments on the calendar before the year ends, including the MPL Split 2 running from August to November 2026, India’s competitive MLBB scene has a full schedule ahead.

For full viewership data on MLBB tournaments and how India’s audience compares to Southeast Asia, explore the Esports Charts Events Dashboard or track streamer-level data on Streams Charts.

Will MLBB eventually be as popular as shooters in India?

While shooters like BGMI and Free Fire have had a great head start in terms of cultural footprint, MLBB is steadily gaining more fans.

Whether MLBB eventually overtakes shooters in raw numbers is still up for debate, but one thing is certain: the era of the one-game nation is pretty much over. It will be interesting to see how local teams will represent the country in major esports events this year.