India’s Gaming Space May Touch $7.5 Bn, Generate 250,000 Jobs By 2025: Meta India MD

Facebook parent Meta sees its next big opportunity in India’s gaming as it expects the space to be worth almost $7.5 Bn and generate 250,000 jobs by 2025, said India MD Sandhya Devanathan.

She was speaking at the first India edition of Meta Gaming Summit in Mumbai on Thursday (March 14).

“While we aim to be an 8-Tn-dollar economy, a trillion of that is going to come from the digital economy, and that will mean that gaming will be a very significant part of that,” ET reported, quoting Devanathan as saying.

The event also marked the launch of ‘Gaming Playbook’ report on the Indian gaming ecosystem.

The report revealed that India has around 146 Mn real money gaming (RMG) players and around 202 Mn non-RMG casual gamers, with a majority residing outside major cities.

The gaming industry is one of India’s emerging sectors, experiencing rapid growth due to digital technologies. In the report, Arun Srinivas, director and head of Ads Business for Meta in India, said, “Gaming is a top three vertical for Meta globally and we’re particularly seeing our Advantage+ suite of automated ads drive growth for gaming brands.”

The summit saw participation from gaming firms like Dream 11 and Nazara Technologies, as well as popular creators. 

“With the help of this automated solution, our customer acquisition cost (CAC) improved by 12%. Today, the majority of our users come from outside the tier-1 and 2 cities. One of our deepest partnerships was during the ICC Men’s World Cup 2023 during which we prioritized testing of new products and measurement. Meta’s marketing science teams helped us measure incremental performance and gave us confidence in running campaigns at scale — that’s the strategy we envision ourselves using for the upcoming IPL 2024 as well,” added Vikrant Mudaliar, chief marketing officer, Dream Sports.

The Meta-commissioned study by GWI on gaming in India highlighted the increasing prevalence of gaming across the country. 

The study revealed that 6 in 10 smartphone gamers game daily, and almost 90% of real-money gamers play real-money games at least weekly. The findings also showed that nearly half of casual gamers and 43% of real-money gamers come from non-metro geographies. 

Meta’s platforms significantly aid in game discovery and purchases, with over 90% of gamers using these platforms for discovery, driven by reels, ads, and influencers. 

During FY23, the Indian gaming industry saw high growth, reaching 568 Mn gamers, with 25% being paying users, as per Lumikai’s report. This reflects a 12% increase in gamers and a strong 17% growth in paying users compared to FY22.

Recently, Pune-based gaming studio Super Gaming’s battle royale game Indus surpassed 10 Mn pre-registrations via Google Play for android devices.

Meanwhile, the gaming and esports pavilion at the Startup Mahakumbh, a unique event uniting India’s entire startup ecosystem, comprising startups, investors, incubators, accelerators, and industry leaders from various sectors, will be held from March 18-20 in New Delhi.