The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) in association with App Annie and Deloitte, recently released two white paper reports outlining substantial growth in the mobile and applied games sectors in India and the opportunities for both local and foreign mobile game publishers and investors, as well as best practices for applied game developers.
NASSCOM Gaming Forum, chairman, Rajesh Rao said, “Both the ‘Mobile Gaming on the Rise in India’ and the ‘Applied Games’ in India white paper reports, demonstrate the growth of both mobile and applied games in India, for both local and international developers and publishers. At NASSCOM Gaming Forum we are excited by these findings and the opportunities these give to both local developers and publishers and look forward to continuing to build a thriving and innovative games economy in India”.
The NASSCOM Gaming Forum and App Annie report ‘Mobile Gaming on the Rise in India’ discusses how Indian consumers are taking to games, with game downloads doubling in the last two years, and the overall amount of time Indian users spent on mobile games growing sharply over the past year.
The mobile game industry in the country will reportedly be growing at 58 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the next five years, which is from 1.6 billion downloads in 2016 to an estimated 5.3 billion downloads in 2020.
According to the report, “As economic prospects improve for India’s large, youthful population, India’s gaming market is poised to soar as well. Gamers are exploring global hits, downloads and usage are exploding across many categories. Engaged gamers are already spending more time in games and paying for game content. We expect game revenue to grow at a CAGR of 87 per cent to reach as high as $1.1 billion by 2020.”
The report also stressed on celebrity and movie-based games and how they were dominating the Indian market along with sports games, which is cricket.
The NASSCOM Gaming Forum and Deloitte report ‘Applied Games in India’ discusses the growth of applied games with a focus on traditional learning, business, marketing or social experiences, that are predominantly used for simulation based training (in the fields of aviation and military). The reports discusses how the Indian market for applied games is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14 to 16 per cent, from $40 million in 2016, to $80 million in 2021. Currently across India there are 40 developers of Applied Games (Independent studios, IT firms venturing into Applied Games and e-learning companies), that operate out of Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and NCR.
You can see the full report here.