Mobile technology plays an important role in the development of different industries around the world. It is no different for the gaming industry in India. According to reports, the online gaming industry in the country is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40 percent for the next two years. This means that by 2022, it will reach a value of over 2.8 billion US dollars.
All forms of gaming are becoming extremely popular in the country including real money games. Despite the pandemic, people still visited the best betting sites for India. This was especially because of the sports that everybody seems to love in this country, cricket.
For a while, it was uncertain whether the Indian Premier League (IPL) will be able to push through last year. It was in March when the IPL announced that the matches for that year will have to be postponed until further notice. Fortunately for the fans, however, it was able to start in September.
Aside from betting, many also started to gain more interest in real money gaming. And all these were made easy because of mobile technology.
The Indian Mobile Gaming Market
The Indian gaming market is now largely driven by mobile users. Deloitte India has reported that the pandemic also played a part in the increase of interest in mobile gaming to 21 percent. This was because of the lockdowns implemented. People had more time to spend on their gaming apps.
India is now one of the countries that have the largest gaming markets in the world. Multiple factors have placed India in this spot. The fact that the internet is now more available in the country is one thing, and we can only expect that the spread of the 5G connection will just make gaming a better experience for the locals.
Local gaming platforms have also attracted more investors over the last few years. Recently, the Mobile Premier League was able to raise 90 million US dollars from Pegasus Tech Ventures., JetSynthesys, and Reliance Jio.
The local real money gaming market is also expected to grow by 2022 with a 40 percent CAGR. Casino games like poker and rummy are two of the most popular to the locals. Esports is also gaining more audience in the country as it is also expected to grow at a CAGR of 36 percent in the next three years.
The Rise of Esports Through Smartphone Gaming
More than ever, the Indians are showing interest in smartphone gaming. Some of the most popularly played mobile games here are PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile. However, PUBG Mobile has already been pulled from the Indian Market. Still, there is a growing craze for mobile games in the country.
This is not left unnoticed by businesses and recently, Qualcomm has announced that it will be holding an esports tournament to provide a massive platform for mobile gamers in the country. There will be a gaming tournament for Garena’s Free Fire where players could win over RS 5000000.
Rajen Vagadia, the VP and President of Qualcomm India and SAARC recently talked to India Times regarding this. He said that India is doing its best to be at the forefront of the esports segment.
“We’ve been working on this for almost two years. What took us so long was also to understand the whole gaming ecosystem. It is a vast country and selecting the right platform is key, those things took some time. To be honest, apart from this I am struggling to figure out what were the challenges. While I’m not considering the government regulation, let’s say sometimes there are some regulations, which probably are not very clear or rather they are clear on, on real money gaming, and this, this is competitive skill-based gaming. I consider these as socially competitive. It allows you to engage, connect,” Rajen said.
“The only challenging bit will be the finale which we plan on doing an offline event where we’ll gather the winning teams together. That part we’ll wait and see what is safe for the players then. Safety for us is very important, whether it is for us, for our gamers, or spectators. And we’ll ensure to make this decision keeping safety in mind. If situations don’t permit, the finale too will be concluded online,” he also added.
Conclusion
Mobile devices are becoming cheaper yet powerful. More and more people are starting to afford it and this just makes that mobile market bigger than ever. As India’s technological infrastructures improve, we can only expect that the gaming segment will also be able to develop into something more. For now, it’s looking more apparent that mobile gaming is claiming the upper hand in India’s gaming industry.
