India Is Emerging As A Gaming Hub: Here's Why

Key points from the 'India Gaming Report FY 2022'

Written by
NDTV Profit Desk
Written by

NDTV Profit Desk

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India's gaming market, which stood at $2.6 billion in 2022, is expected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27 per cent to reach $8.6 billion by 2027. The revenue source is likely to move from RMG (real money games), where users play to earn, to in-app purchases, a category growing at 34 per cent CAGR.
In FY 2022, India had over 50.7 crore gamers, of which almost one-fourth (12 crores) were paying users. In the last year, the total number of gamers rose by over 5.7 crore - a rise of about 12 per cent. In FY22, mid-core games - which require time, effort, and skills - were the fastest-growing gaming category, achieving growth of 32 per cent and grossing combined revenues worth $550 million.
India became the largest consumer of mobile games in FY 2022 in total downloads. Currently, India's market is three times the size of the US and nearly two and a half times the size of China. Since 2020, total game downloads have grown from 6.5 billion to 15 billion. India also had the highest share of game downloads (17 per cent) globally in 2022.
According to the report, Indian gaming companies are on track to raise $513 million by the end of FY 2022, which is a 380 per cent increase since 2019. Interestingly, most investments have come since 2020, coinciding with the Covid-19 period. The corresponding period also saw three Indian gaming unicorns - MPL, Games 24x7 and Dream11.
Web3 - a new iteration of the internet which incorporates concepts like decentralisation, VR, AR and metaverse - has emerged as an increasingly popular technology in games, stated the report. At least 30 per cent of the 450 Indian Web3 companies are operating in the gaming sector. Web3 games in India raised approximately $400 million in funding between 2019 and 2022, the report added.