Casual online gaming is here to stay in India, may grow to Rs 169 billion industry by 2025: KPMG – Times of India

Like it or not, most people end up spending way too much time on their smartphone devices or rather in front of one screen or the other. One big beneficiary of this has been gaming, which coupled with Covid-19 induced lockdowns, has given it a much needed boost. According to a KPMG report on casual gaming, the pandemic has been the “proverbial tipping point for the consumption of gaming in India.”
With people being forced to stay indoors for an extended period of time in 2020, and now in 2021 as well, online gaming as a form of entertainment has well and truly come to the fore, notes the report. The report further notes that, “with games adding social elements to their product, and people looking at gaming as a proper means to take a break from work, almost all the metrics, be it the game downloads, average time spent on gaming, or the conversion from a Daily Active User (DAU) to a paid user; are operating at a higher new normal as compared to the pre COVID-19 lockdown time.”
However, when it comes to monetisation from casual gaming, India ranks quite low. As per the report, the ARPU or Average Revenue Per User in India is amongst the lowest in the country.
Still, successful Battle Royale and casual games like ‘Ludo King’ have yielded good results when it comes paid user conversions.
“We foresee a very strong growth for online casual gaming sub-segment in India, likely to grow to Rs 169 billion in FY25, from a size of Rs 60 billion in FY21,” states the KPMG report.
The growth will be driven by both demand side factors such as growth in digital infrastructure, a young population and increasing adoption of digital payments; as well as supply side factors such as increasing supply of world class gaming titles due to Indian studios achieving scale, active investor interest, localisation of gaming content and ecosystem growth factors such as adoption of Esports in India, the report concludes.