India’s online casual gaming sub segment, which was a ₹6,000-crore industry in FY21, is projected to reach the size of ₹16,900 crore in FY25, growing at a CAGR of 29 per cent, said a KPMG study on Thursday.

Interestingly, online casual gaming segment accounted for some 44 per cent of the country’s total online gaming industry in FY21 and its share is likely to become 58 per cent in by FY25, revealed ‘Beyond the tipping point– A primer on casual gaming in India’ put out by the firm.

In terms of users, as per the report, the sub-segment, at 420 million gamers in FY21 accounted for some 97 per cent of the total gamers in India and is expected to continue to maintain this share until FY25.

However, the KPMG study said, the segment was significantly under-indexed on monetisation with lower ARPUs as compared to other gaming markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa.

Record consumption

Girish Menon, Partner and Head, Media and Entertainment, KPMG in India, said, “The online casual gaming sub-segment in India has emerged as the largest in terms of consumption amongst overall online gaming. The sub segment saw its tipping point in 2020, with consumption and engagement at an all-time high. Its growth potential is immense.”

“Further, with the emergence of ecosystem enablers such as esports and game streaming, online casual gaming is likely to appeal to the masses and professionals alike. We envisage the online gaming segment to be amongst the largest segments of the M&E industry in India in the years to come, garnering a share of both the time, and the wallet of the Indian digital billion,” Menon added.

Meanwhile, the country’s overall online gaming industry estimated at ₹13,600 crore in FY21 is projected to grow at a CAGR of 21 per cent over FY21-25 to reach a size of ₹29,000 crore.

The online gaming segment has grown at a rapid pace in the last 3-4 years and is now competing with traditional forms of entertainment for the share of time spent on media and entertainment in a day, as per the study.

Covid boosts online gaming

While the Covid-19 induced lockdowns had an adverse impact on the economy and traditional segments of the M&E industry, online gaming as a segment got a leg up in terms of both consumption and partly, monetisation. This was evident from the fact that India had the highest game downloads in the casual mobile gaming sub-segment in the world (excluding China) in 2020, with Q1-Q3 2020 downloads standing at 7.3 billion, accounting for 17 per cent of the global mobile game downloads, found the study.

The monthly active users for the top 100 mobile games and the time spent on online gaming, were higher by 10-15 per cent post lockdown 2020.

Also, with technologies such as cloud gaming on the anvil and the adoption of latest AI/ML led technologies, online casual gaming in India was becoming a serious business, both for the players in the ecosystem as well as the investors, the study further said.

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