Here's why Mukesh Ambani's view on gaming taking on movies and music seems apt

If you think it is hard to believe that gaming in India can take on movies and music, then know what the Chairman of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani, has to say about the gaming industry's growth potential.

At Microsoft’s Future Decoded CEO Summit in Mumbai on February 24, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asked Ambani if he could become a gamer in the next decade. While Ambani said that it might be difficult, he did talk about the potential of the Indian gaming industry.

"For some of us who are not gamers, it is difficult to imagine that it (gaming) will be bigger than music and movies put together," said  Ambani.

Looking at the growth the Indian gaming market has seen in recent years, Ambani’s answer would not come as a surprise. According to data by Statista, the market value of the gaming industry in India was around Rs 6,200 crore in 2019 and is estimated to go up to over Rs 25,000 crore by 2024.

It is also expected that the number of mobile gamers, who stood at around 250 million in 2018, will grow to 600 million in the next two to three years.

This growth in the gaming industry is mostly attributed to factors like increasing smartphone affordability and penetration, an expanding internet user base, and declining data prices.

During the fire-side chat with Nadella, Ambani had also pointed out that pre-Jio, the internet speed Indi had was 256 kbps, which was called broadband, and post-Jio, the average speed of mobile data available in every single village in India stood 21 mbps.

He added that before Jio, the price of data was between Rs 300 and Rs 500. “For the poorest of poor, who use 2G, the price was as high as 10,000 rupees a GB. Post-Jio, the price is between Rs 12 and Rs 14 a GB,” he said.

And thanks to better internet connectivity and a drop in data prices, India is now among the top five biggest mobile gaming markets in the world.

What is more interesting is that a report suggested that people spend more time on mobile games than on video streaming apps or television in India.

A study by Mobile Marketing Association's ‘Power of Mobile Gaming in India’ read that three out of four gamers in India play mobile games at least twice a day, and they mostly play during prime-time slot that is between 8pm to midnight.

In addition, the time spent by players in India has increased to over an hour every day on mobile games, which is higher than the 45 minutes spent on video streaming services.

And looking at the growth in gamers’ population to increased time spent on gaming platforms, Ambani’s view of the gaming industry in India seems more apt.