India Now Has 50 Crore Gamers, Becomes World’s #1 Gaming Market With Massive 15 Billion Downloads!

In a major milestone for the Indian gaming industry, the country has crossed the half-a-billion mark with 507Mn gamers today. 

Observing Indian gaming trends

Out of this 120Mn, almost one-fourth, are paying users with $20 revenue per paying user.

The data comes from Lumikai, India’s only gaming-focused venture capital fund which released the first look of its ‘India Gaming Report FY 2022’. 

The report was compiled using inputs from a demographic sample of 2,240 respondents, third-party data providers, interviews with industry leaders, and Lumikai’s proprietary insights.

Input sought include gamer and non-gamer motivations, behaviors, preferences, and monetisation propensity.

Most consumers playing mobile games.. In the world!

With 15Bn downloads, India was the largest consumer of mobile games in the world in FY22.

This phenomenal growth can be credited to the young population with gaming-ready smartphones and access to cheap data, all contributing to sustained growth in gaming usage.

Indian gamers spent an average of 8.5 hours per week on mobile games in FY22.

Fastest growing gaming categories

Mid-core games such as BGMI, Free Fire were the fastest growing gaming category with a growth of 32%, grossing combined revenues of ~$550 Mn.

Mid-core games refers to those that are more complex than hyper-casual and casual games.

Time spent on such games is approximately double that of top casual games, with Free Fire leading the pack with an average of 109 minutes spent/user/day.

Top games most time spent on

It is followed by BGMI (80 mins), Genshin Impact (80 mins), COD Mobile (67 mins) and Clash of Clans (40 mins).

This trend of spending high amounts of time over the last year suggests a user base primed for more mature game experiences.

Average revenue per paying user grew 11% to $20/year, with 2 Mn New Paying Users (NPU) added per month.

This means it requires players to make time to play, rather than playing sporadically along with skill and strategy to progress.

Who pays for games?

As mentioned earlier, nearly one-fourth of the 507Mn gamers in India are paying users. 

Nearly 48% of gamers spend money on mid-core games.

65% of paying gamers say they have made in-app purchases at least once.

Indian gaming companies are on track to raise $513Mn for the calendar year ’22.

Funding, investment all on the rise

Booming interest in investments and M&A show a promising picture for India’s fast-growing gaming industry.

The sector is on the rise in terms of funding which is up 380% from 2019 and up 23% from 2020. 

Industry growth is expected to be fuelled by a rapidly increasing gamer base, higher conversion to paid users, and increasing sophistication of the Indian gamer, notes Lumikai.

Web3 

Web3 has emerged as an increasingly popular technology in games, with 30% of 450 Indian Web3 companies operating in gaming.

Web3 games in India have raised ~USD 400 Mn in funding (2019-22). 

Technological and structural evolutions combined with growing appetite for domestic content and live game streaming are catalyzing this industry change.

Appetite for Indian content, Gender ratio

Meanwhile, India-based content is growing in popularity with 80% of gamers showing a proclivity to play games based on Indian intellectual property.

The number of female gamers in India is on the rise.

Male: female ratio of surveyed gamers yielded a 60:40 ratio, equally split between metro and nonmetro cities.

Historic year for India’s gaming industry

Justin Shriram Keeling, Founding General Partner, Lumikai said, 

“India’s gaming industry this year hit major inflection points, registering strong growth across the board. 

India crossed half a billion gamers in FY22, up from 450 Mn the year prior. 

With the market now truly mainstream, we are thrilled to be at the forefront of investing in one of the fastest growing and most dynamic sectors in digital India.”

Watershed moment, promising future

Salone Sehgal, Founding General Partner, Lumikai noted that the past 28 months have been watershed years in terms of attracting VC investment of over $2.6Bn in the Indian gaming landscape.

The industry is set to cross $8.6 Bn by FY27.

“This sustained momentum should further drive entrepreneurial ambition and innovation in the Indian gaming industry” she commented.