Gameloft eyes mobile gaming sales surge

Gameloft, the international publisher and developer of video games for mobile phones and consoles which forayed into India only three years back, hopes to raise to 10 per cent its market share in the Rs 150 crore Indian mobile game market by 2009-10, riding on the back of more tie-ups with leading telecom providers, telephone wireless carriers and handset manufacturers.

The 100 million Euro company started operations in India in 2005 and at present has distribution agreement with telecom provider Vodafone and handset manufacturer Nokia.

It said it was in talks with others to develop a distribution network. “We are looking at tapping as many platforms-telecom carriers, handset manufacturers, console manufacturers in India as possible since India is a potential market where the mobile gaming market is estimated to grow 10 times in two years time and Gameloft games can be used on any handset equipped with Java, Brew or symbian technology irrespective of the model”, claimed Ravi Kumar, country manager (India), Gameloft.

According to Kumar, roughly 25-30 million mobile internet users in India were untapped.

Alliances with Airtel and Spice could follow, with agreements possible this month. Talks with other service providers like BSNL, Reliance and Idea for distribution were on, claimed Kumar.

Besides its collaboration with Nokia, Gameloft was in talks with Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

The F305model to be launched by Sony Ericsson next year used Gameloft games.

The international mobile gaming market was worth around $300 billion. Gameloft had a game development studio at Hyderabad in India employing 270 people. It had 12 production studios across the globe and 3300 developers producing more than 250 games till date.

Developing and publishing a single mobile game in India cost Rs 18 lakh to Rs 2.5 crore.

Karnataka, Mumbai and Delhi markets constituted 40 per cent of Indian mobile gaming sales.