Forecast: In 2028, the Indian gaming market will generate $7.5 billion
Analysts at Lumikai have presented a report on the state of the video game market in India. According to their forecasts, the industry's revenue will grow by an average of 20% over the next four years.
Ludo King
- By the end of 2023, the revenue of the Indian gaming market reached $3.1 billion, a 19% growth over the year.
- The majority of revenue was generated by Real Money Gaming (RMG) — $2 billion of the total amount.
- Analysts classify the RMG sector as encompassing a wide range of mobile gambling games: from card games like poker or rummy to fantasy sports. At least five such platforms are in top demand for donations among Indian users. However, it's not entirely accurate to consider betting games as part of the gaming industry.
- It is expected that from 2024 to 2028, the market size will increase with an average annual growth rate of 20%.
- According to Lumikai’s forecasts, by 2028, the Indian gaming market could earn $7.5 billion, mainly due to the growth of in-game purchases and advertising revenue in casual and midcore games.
Revenue distribution by category for 2022-2023 and forecast for 2028
- According to analysts' calculations, by the end of 2023, there were 568 million gamers in the country, which is 12% more than the previous year.
- The proportion of paying players grew by 17% over the past year, reaching 140 million people.
The ratio of India's population to the number of internet users, smartphone owners, gamers, and paying users in the country
- The ARPPU (average revenue per paying user) metric increased tenfold since 2019 — it currently stands at $19.2.
- In 2023, Indian gamers spent $323 million on in-app purchases (IAP) in mobile games — 37% more than in 2022.
- Lumikai emphasized that following unsuccessful launches and repeated removals of banned titles like Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Garena Free Fire from app stores, players have increasingly turned to other IPs.
Ranking of genres and individual games by IAP revenue
- Analysts note a trend of increased gaming time among Indian players. Compared to 2022, in 2023, they began spending 20% more time on video games — averaging 10-12 hours per week per player.
- According to the report, game downloads in India reached 15.4 billion, ranking second only to China with its 25.9 billion downloads.
