Mobile Premier League to slash 350 jobs after 28 pc GST burden 

Online gaming company Mobile Premier League (MPL) has decided to slash 350 jobs after India decided to increase Goods and Service Tax (GST) on gamers and gaming companies to 28 per cent, Mint reported.

MPL’s founders Sai Srinivas and Shubh Malhotra in a late Tuesday email thanked their employees while saying that the last month has been challenging and uncertain for the company.

“The new rules will increase our tax burden by as much as 350 to 400 per cent. As a business, one can prepare for a 50 per per cent increase, but adjusting to a sudden increase of this magnitude means we need to make some very tough decisions,” Mint quoted the email as saying.

Quoting sources, Mint reported that the company confirmed that layoffs would be effective at the entry level while MPL declined to make any statements.

“In a short span of four years, we have achieved a lot. MPL India was on track to continue the amazing business performance we have seen since December when we turned EBITDA positive,” the email from the founders further said while addressing the additional costs leading to the large number of job slashes.

The Bengaluru-based startup is supported by Sequoia Capital, which led a $35.5 million fundraising round in 2019. In 2022, VCCircle reported that the firm had cut off 100 employees, or around 10 per cent of its workforce, stating that it would no longer pursue “growth at any cost” and would instead pursue “profitable growth.” It also left the Indonesian market that year.

Three fantasy sports platforms - DreamSports-owned Dream11, Games24x7-owned My11Circle, and Galactus Funware Technology-owned MPL - are among India’s top gaming corporations, and the industry is estimated to be worth $2-2.5 billion by the All-India Gaming Federation.

According to highly placed industry sources citing data from Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), M-League Private Limited, Galactus’ Singapore-based parent company, spent $92 million on advertising and promotional expenses in financial year 2022, an 81 per cent increase over financial year 2021. This increase in spending significantly contributed to its losses increasing threefold from financial year 2021 to $149 million in financial year 2022.

India decided to carry forward with the 28 per cent GST on the sector. To prevent or delay these enterprises from shifting their headquarters offshore and to protect their clients from the additional GST burden, the Council has suggested that even offshore entities offering such online money games to Indian consumers must register and pay GST. According to gaming companies, this could severely harm the sector.

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