When people in India were locked inside
their homes and bored, they flocked to online gaming in droves, boosting the
growth of an industry that is still in its infancy in the country. The onset of
the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown boosted mobile gaming in India, with
45 percent of Indians starting to play games on their smartphones during this
period.
In the July-September quarter of last
year, the number of mobile game downloads in the country surpassed 2.9 billion,
up from around 2 billion in Q1CY20.From about 250 million gamers at the end of
FY18, the number of Indian gamers grew to nearly 400 million by mid-CY20,
establishing the country as the “second-largest base of online gamers in the
world after China”, according to a recent report published by KPMG.
This also resulted in a spike in the
amount of time spent on mobile gaming and the number of apps they experimented
with. Among the committed gamers, 40 percent spent more time on gaming apps,
while 38 percent of them increased the variety of the games they played,
according to a survey by adtech firm InMobi.
Gaming in India is no longer restricted
to young men, and accessibility and affordability of smartphones and high-speed
internet have made mobile gaming a popular source of entertainment for people
regardless of age and location. Women constitute 43 per cent of the mobile
gaming audience in India, of which, 12 per cent are in the age group of 25-44
and 28 per cent over 45 years.
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“In addition to metros and tier one
cities, penetration beyond tier two cities has also started taking place
gradually. Further, there are an increasing number of women gamers and the
social stigma and resistance to online gaming, specifically casual gaming, is
gradually fading away,” analysts at KPMG said in the report.
Analysts anticipate the trend will
continue; while the rate of increase in consumption slowed once cities reopened
following the initial shutdown, most important business indicators such as
monthly active users (MAUs) were greater on average than in the pre-Covid
period. In reality, the limits implemented to control the second wave's surge
may have boosted consumption.
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Investors are also heavily backing the
sector. An estimated $544 million was infused into the gaming sector during the
August 2020-January 2021 period. The investments should help local companies to
scale up their operations and cater to global markets, many of whom lack the
wherewithal to fight global competitors.
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