507 mn: India records largest pool of mobile gamers, pips China, America

HYDERABAD: India ruled the global gaming industry in 2021-22, with the country recording the largest pool of mobile game consumers, revealed the India Gaming Report FY 2021-22 released in Hyderabad on Thursday. With 15 billion game downloads, it beat China and the US hands down as the two stood a distant second and third with 6.1 billion and 5 billion downloads respectively.
The report curated by Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media fund, along with Deloitte India, was released at the India Game Developers Conference (IGDC).
India's gamers' population crossed the half-a-billion mark in 2021-22 with their count touching 507 million. This number is expected to hit 700 million by 2025, the report said.
"India's gaming industry this year hit major inflection points, registering strong growth across the board. The growth is expected to be fuelled further by a rapidly increasing gamer base, higher conversion to paid users and increasing sophistication of Indian gamers," said Justin Shriram Keeling, founding general partner of Lumikai. According to him the markets in the US and China, on the other hand, are either hitting stagnation or witnessing a drop in demand.
When it comes to paid users, the report found that the average revenue made during 2021-22 grew by 11% in India - to $20 per year per person, which is roughly Rs 1,600.
This shatters the assumption that Indians are reluctant to pay," the report stated.
Buoyed by this spectacular growth, the industry at home is now being pumped with funds from across the globe, the report highlights, pushing the investments up by a staggering 380% this year, when compared to 2019. In fact since 2021, India found itself three gaming unicorns, and at least one successful IPO from its pool of over 900 companies.
"The last 28 months have been a watershed period in terms of attracting VC investment of over $2.6 billion in the Indian gaming landscape," said Salone Sehgal, another founding general partner, Lumikai.
Another interesting finding: The male-female ratio of gamers in India. The survey that comprised 2,240 respondents found a heartening shift in trend as this ratio stood at 60:40, indicating an increasing emergence of women gamers. The average weekly time spent on games was found to be 8.5 hours this year, with a game like 'Free Fire' (a battle game) walking away with the the lion's share of 109 minutes (on an average) spent on it.