Gaming industry in India has been positively impacted by the pandemic:Anmol Puri,Deloitte

“These are exciting times for the gaming industry in India, and the industry has turned into a classical snowball, wherein in the next 3-5 years we are going to see some stupendous growth, something that has been coming for the last 5-7 years but has accelerated now,” remarked Anmol Puri, Partner, Deloitte. Puri said this while delivering his keynote address during the inaugural edition of GAMEXX 2021, hosted by Adgully yesterday (August 12, 2021).

While sharing his views on the ‘Rise of Fantasy Gaming in India’, Puri noted, “There is a breakthrough in demographics of the number of people who have adopted gaming, such as millennials, GenZs, age group above 25, 35, and women, which looks pretty astounding within a short period of time.” Adding further, he pointed out that gaming is one of those industries in India which has been positively impacted by the pandemic – not just in terms of time that consumers had, but also in terms of the ways that they have engaged. This has increased the time share and has given more exposure to their platform engagements. Meanwhile, the platforms themselves are now maturing and growing.

Puri noted, “The global gaming market is around $200 billion and is expected to grow at 10% over the next 5-6 years. APAC is a dominant market with a significant share of the global gaming market, along with North America, and now we are seeing some growth in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America as well.”

Further dissecting the APAC region, Puri said that the classical markets in the APAC like China, Japan, and South Korea have had a very high proximity with a semi-conductive value chain and deeper Internet penetration and high speed connectivity available to their gamers. These are also the countries that are high on adoption of technologies and fundamental drivers for consumerism, which aids the penetration of gaming in all these markets.

According to Puri, the devices that contribute to the gaming markets can be classified into two categories – On-the-go and Dedicated devices. On-the-go devices consist of smartphones and tablets, while dedicated devices include consoles and PCs. “If we look at on-the-go devices, they constitute 40% of the all devices globally and in the next 6-7 years they are expected to grow to 50% of the gaming market,” he added. 

Comparing the gaming markets in China and India, Puri informed that while China has around 650 million gamers, India has 450 million gamers. On the other hand, the US has 200 million gamers, but still China and the US markets are 25-30% bigger than the Indian market. According to Puri, the reason behind this is that almost 70% of China is on dedicated devices – consoles and PCs, while in the US that number is as high as 80%, In contrast, in India it is less than 9%. 

Watch this interesting analysis of the gaming market and the complete keynote address below:

(Edited and Additional Inputs by Shanta Saikia.)