According to a report published by Sequoia and BCG, India’s mobile gaming sector will grow from $1.5 billion in revenue in 2020 to $5 billion by 2025. Sequoia’s Prachi Pawak and Pushpak Kedia said, “There are now over 300 million gamers in India, and revenue across all gaming devices has reached $1.8 billion in 2020, and we expect the revenue to reach $5 billion by 2025.”
It is essential to consider that eighty percent of the generated revenue in 2020 came from in-app purchases and real-money games (RMG). Spending, the report said. There is an increase in revenue up to 500% when compared to 2016. The monetization in non-RMG games is nascent but seeing an upward trend.
Investors are showing positive curiosity towards gaming platforms because they mitigate the hits-driven nature of individual games. Unprecedented growth in investor interest was seen on the gaming industry’s 33 percent of all gaming funding in India in the first quarter of 2021.
Although China and the US are more significant markets, the report said India’s gaming sector is growing faster at a CAGR of 38 percent.
“There’s also a strong correlation between sociability and spend. Close to half the gamers surveyed for this report play games to keep in touch with family and friends, and high engagement gamer archetypes tend to spend more across monetization models. These gamers tend to gravitate towards real money gaming (RMG), which is key,” said Prachi and Pushpak.
Although the Indian gaming industry is currently smaller than US and China, it generates $1.5B in revenue. It is expected to triple to $5B+ by 2025 on the back of the “mobile-first” phenomenon. The growth in the Gaming industry in India can be attributed to better smartphones, increased internet access, popular titles, influencers, and the global pandemic.
“The gaming industry in India saw a growth of almost 40% in 2019-20, more than that of OTT, television, and social media platforms. 86% of this market consists of mobile phone users. While there is a large dependence on ad revenues today, increasing traction and engagement is expected to drive higher willingness to pay, which will drive new ways of user monetization and rising ARPUs in the coming years”, said BCG Managing Director and Senior Partner Vikash Jain.
