Indian mobile gaming sector revenues to grow to $5 bn by 2025: Report

India’s mobile gaming sector will grow from $1.5 billion of revenue in 2020 to $5 billion by 2025, according to a report published by VC firm Sequoia and management consulting company BCG on Wednesday.

While India’s gaming company initially monetised through in-game advertising, 80 per cent of the $1.5 billion generated by mobile gaming in 2020 came from in-app purchases and real-money game (RMG) spends, the report said. There are now over 300 million gamers in India, and revenue across all gaming devices reached $1.8 billion in 2020, up 500 per cent from 2016.

Investors are bullish on gaming platforms because they mitigate the hits-driven nature of individual games. Such platforms accounted for over 88 per cent of all VC funding in gaming in 2020 -- which was more than $400 million.

Although China and the US are bigger markets, India’s gaming sector is growing faster at a CAGR of 38 per cent, the report said.

“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 monetisation models. These gamers tend to gravitate towards real money gaming (RMG), which is key,” said authors Prachi Pawar and Pushpak Kedia of Sequoia.