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With Affordable and Better Smartphones Gaming In India Outpaces Other Media Sub-Sectors

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With Affordable and Better Smartphones Gaming In India Outpaces Other Media Sub-Sectors

Mobile Dominates Gaming in the Country: The latest IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) report reveals that mobile gaming massively dominates India’s gaming market bringing in an excess of 90% of the sector’s revenues of $1.6 billion. Further growth is expected, as the current 43 crores, mobile gamers are projected to reach 65 crores by the year 2025.

Smartphones have been getting more and more affordable while carrying more and more powerful hardware and can now run games that require medium or even high specs. This has opened the doors to the general public for a more immersive gaming experience, while many consoles and PC game titles are being remade for mobile.

“Over the past few years, the e-gaming industry in India has grown tremendously, driven by the rising avenues for digitisation and improved accessibility centred around innovation and affordability by OEMs (original equipment manufacturers),” comments Navnit Nakra, Vice President of OnePlus India.

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Also Read: Making Headlines in the Online Gaming Industry

Sequoia and BCG Confirm the Findings

Another recently published report, provided by VC firm Sequoia and management advisors BCG (Boston Consulting Group), comes up with similar numbers estimating mobile gaming at $1.5 billion or 86% of the total gaming market in India that was worth $1.8 billion in 2020. 

Breaking down the figures, real money fantasy sports and casino games have been pushing monetization up accounting for 53% of all revenues registered by India’s mobile gaming sector. Other user-generated revenues in the form of in-app purchases (IAPs) brought in another 27% of the gross proceeds, while business-to-business (B2B) payments for ad placements made up the remaining 20%.

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The Sequoia and BCG study expects the country’s mobile gaming sector to exceed $5 billion worth by 2025 on the back of the massive CAGRs (compound annual growth rates) clocked in by the industry in recent years.

During the fiscal year of 2018-2019 mobile gaming in India grew at 37% followed by Social and Online Media at 26%, but largely in the shadow of OTT Video platforms which grew at 61%. During the next FY of 2019-2020, the growth of mobile gaming accelerated to 39%, while the growth rates of OTT and Social & Online Media slowed down to 26 and 11% respectively. With the exception of Books, all other media sub-sectors, including Television, Newspapers and Magazines, Cinema and Home Entertainment, and Audio, registered negative growth figures.

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“Affordable smartphones with high-speed internet access have made it easier and convenient for a user to consume their favourite format of interactive games from anywhere,” comments WinZo’s co-founder and CEO Paavan Nanda.

The Pandemic Further Accelerated Gaming Growth

The lifestyle restrictions brought by the pandemic shot up mobile app downloads by 50%, while user engagement increased by 20%. The trend is confirmed by a recent research paper by gaming market analysts ENV Media (Esse N Videri Media) on product preferences of desi players. The study looks at proprietary SevenJackpots Google Analytics data that reveals massive organic acquisition spikes in April and May 2020, followed by normalization to higher-than-before numbers.

“The years 2020 and 2021 have been very prosperous for the gaming industry, with a large rush of games, gamers and developers,” comments Krafton’s India Division Head Sean Hyunil Sohn.

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Also Read: 5 Ways to Earn Money in Games

Indian Gaming Startups Attract Large Investments

Krafton Inc, the creator of PUBG Mobile, invested $22.4 million in desi esports firm Nodwin Gaming and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) currently boasts an excess of 50 million users in Bharat. The nation’s startup ecosystem roped in $1.6 billion of fresh funding from investors within the first three quarters of 2021.

India’s two gaming unicorns – fantasy sports operator Dream Sports and gaming platform the Mobile Premier League (MPL) – received 90% of the investments. Nevertheless, smaller players didn’t stay behind as skill-based real money gaming platform Zupee, a social gaming app WinZO, and game–learning operator PlayShify were backed up by millions of top venture capital.

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“The Indian gaming ecosystem consists of gamers of all ages, game developers and designers, investors and marketers all working together to come up with the latest cutting-edge games, concepts and offers for players,” says Sohn.

In the past 3 years, Atul has made his mark across numerous news platforms, showcasing his prolific content creation skills. His dedication to writing is evident through his extensive body of work, contributing valuable insights across various topics.

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