With 507 million players as of today, India has reached a significant milestone for the gaming industry.

Observing Indian gaming trends, almost a quarter of the 120 million users are paying customers, earning $20 per user.

The information comes from Lumikai, the only gaming-focused venture capital fund in India, which recently unveiled the first look at its ‘India Gaming Report FY 2022.’

A demographic sample of 2,240 respondents, third-party data providers, interviews with industry leaders, and Lumikai’s insights were used to compile the report.

Motivations, actions, preferences, and monetization propensity of gamers and non-gamers are among the types of information sought.

The majority of consumers worldwide play mobile games!
India was the world’s largest consumer of mobile games in FY22, with 15 billion downloads.

This phenomenal growth can be attributed to the young population’s access to inexpensive data and gaming-ready smartphones, which all contributed to the continued growth of gaming usage.

In FY22, Indian gamers played mobile games an average of 8.5 hours per week.

The fastest-growing gaming categories were mid-core games like BGMI and Free Fire, which saw a 32 per cent growth rate and generated combined revenues of about $550 million.

Games that are more complex than hyper-casual and casual are referred to as mid-core games.

Free Fire leads the pack with an average of 109 minutes spent per user per day, more than double that of the best casual games.

It is followed by BGMI (80 minutes), Genshin Impact (80 minutes), COD Mobile (67 minutes), and Clash of Clans (40 minutes), the games with the most time spent on them.

Over the past year, this pattern of spending a lot of time suggests that users are ready for more mature game experiences.

With 2 million new paying users (NPU) added each month, the average revenue per paying user increased by 11% to $20 annually.

As a result, to advance, players must dedicate time to playing rather than playing sporadically.

Who funds games?

As previously stated, nearly one-fourth of India’s 507 million gamers are paying customers.

Mid-core games are purchased by nearly 48% of gamers.

In-app purchases have been used by 65 percent of paid gamers at least once.

For the year 22, Indian gaming companies are expected to raise $513 million.

Interest in investments and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is on the rise, which bodes well for India’s rapidly expanding gaming industry.

The sector received 380% more funding in 2019 than in 2019, and 23% more in 2020.

According to Lumikai, “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.”

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

In India, Web3 games have raised $400 million in funding between 2019 and 22.

This industry shift is sparked by technological and structural changes, as well as growing demand for domestic content and live game streaming.

Gender ratio and appetite for Indian content In the meantime, 80 percent of gamers are inclined to play games based on Indian intellectual property, indicating that content based in India is gaining popularity.

In India, the number of female gamers is on the rise.

Male: The female percentage of gamers surveyed was 60:40, with metro and nonmetro cities being equally represented.

“India’s gaming industry this year hit major inflection points, registering strong growth across the board,” Justin Shriram Keeling, Founding General Partner of Lumikai, stated.

In FY22, India had over half a billion players, up from 450 million the year before.

We are thrilled to be at the forefront of investing in one of digital India’s fastest-growing and most dynamic sectors now that the market is truly mainstream.

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

By FY27, the industry is expected to reach $8.6 billion.

She observed that “this sustained momentum should further drive entrepreneurial ambition and innovation in the Indian gaming industry.”

Credit: BusinessLine