Sports gaming trumps radio & music industry
According to the KPMG report 2019, sports gaming through mobile devices in India will become larger than radio and music industries combined in the next few years, growing at a CAGR of 22%.
India had 198 million mobile gamers in 2015, this number is expected to grow to 628 million gamers on multiple portable devices by 2020. Out of the 15 million PC and console gamers in the country, two million are eSports gamers and nearly 1000 are pro-gamers in India-making PC and console gaming the next step in the evolution of a gamer's lifecycle.
All India Gaming Federation (AIGF), the apex Industry body for Policy Advocacy for online Gaming in India has released a report 'Online Games: A tool for learning & development' at a launch event in Delhi.
AIGF CEO Roland Landers said, "The proliferation of digital infrastructure, high-speed internet and growing technology have led to a tremendous growth in the online gaming industry. There are an estimated 300 million mobile gamers in India. The number of digital gaming companies has also seen a rapid rise. In digital sports gaming players like Mobile Premier League (MPL) and First Games from the PayTM stable taking the lead in driving growth in this sector"
According to a report, 'India's trillion dollor digital opportunity' by Mckinsey and Co, in 2017, India has over 7.7 billion app downloads, next only to China.
The Indian gaming industry has witnessed a paradigm shift with the rapid growth in digital infrastructure, increasing smartphone affordability and penetration, expanding internet user base, declining data price and evolution of digital and online gaming models leading to a surge in the number of online gaming players over the last couple of years.
Since digital sports gaming came into existence in the early 2000s there has been a steady growth,today revenues clocked at US$906 million. The growth is attributed to rapidly urbanised Indian Society.
The digital sports gaming market in terms of value will be almost similar to the global media rights of cricket at around US$2billion says the report. In India, there is a social stigma attached to online games with perceptions such as 'unsocial', unhealthy and that it is addictive.
According to the KPMG report 2019, sports gaming through mobile devices in India will become larger than radio and music industries combined in the next few years, growing at a CAGR of 22%.
A recent research shows that one fourth of the total internet browser loves to play online games and there are more than 250million online game players worldwide.
League of legends, the world's most popular online game attracted more than 32 million eyeballs for the 2013 finals, more than NBA finals and the MLB World series. NASA did a study around competitive eSports group to study technology, teamwork and human performance. 7.7 billion mobile app downloads
- 628 million gamers on portable devices
- 2 million competitive eSports gamers
- 1000 pro-gamers