India at present has 462 million internet users surpassing the United States in terms of the number of internet users and is now trailing only to China’s mammoth 731 million users. It is expected that there will be about 600 million internet users in India by 2020, according to a report by Assocham-Deloitte. Internet penetration has been growing at a rate of 10% per year and is expected to grow at a higher rate in the forthcoming years. Despite this growth rate, only 22 % of the Indian market is penetrated, leaving a lot of ground to cover. It is expected that this numbers would rise to 50% at the end of the year as the government is aiming to move towards a cashless economy.
As the masses are smitten by the technological advancements and social network, there is scope for huge growth, particularly on mobile. As of 2016, India had an estimate of 262 million mobile internet users living in urban communities, and 109 million living in rural areas. Mobile devices account for 79 percent of web traffic in India compared to 50% globally. Mobile internet usage is expected to grow since smartphones are available for a lesser cost when compared to other countries. At $158 per unit, India has the lowest average smartphone cost. According to a report, the smartphone market will grow at a CAGR of 23% in India through 2018 and would account for 30% of the global growth during the period.
Indians are spending 8 hours a day on the internet on average, which is more than the 6.15 hours, the Chinese spend. Facebook is the most popular social networking site in the country. Facebook had 165 million monthly active users in India, largest in the world after the US. With the free data by Reliance Jio, the numbers skyrocketed as it the facebook logins surged by a staggering 467%.
However, the average broadband speed in India is at a dismal 4.1 Mbps compared to global average of 6.3 Mbps. So, India has a huge burden on her shoulders to increase its broadband speed to catch up to the global standards. Only a fast broadband connection would enable our users to venture into highbrow research and create any meaningful impact.
Indian gaming industry
Indian gaming industry is currently valued at $890 million and is expected to grow at double digits. In 2016, India accounted for 0.55% of the global gaming industry and is expected to grow because of the internet penetration and increasing game preferences by the young internet users,
In Q2 2016, India ranked fifth globally by game downloads at 1.6 billion and expected to reach 5.3 billion in 2020. It is expected to surpass both Russia and Brazil in the coming years.
Google Play is generating 13 times more downloads compared to iOS which is understandable as the penetration of iPhone in India is very less compared to android based phones. In Q2 2016, over 300 million games were downloaded on iOS and Google Play combined in India.
The gaming industry currently has 250 game developers and is forecasted to increase in the near future as the demand for online games is ever increasing.
There has been an increase in demand of Indian made games. Just like the film industry which is always dominated by Indian content, games made in India are slowly capturing the attention of Indian consumer. The success stories of several online based games like Online Rummy Games, Online Poker are some examples of Indian gamers’ preferences.
These stats clearly indicate that the growth of Indian gaming industry is going to skyrocket in the upcoming years as there are more areas to explore according to experts. The reason behind this increase is due to many factors listed below;
Free Downloads
Many interesting games available to play in Playstore and App store come free. You don’t have to pay a penny for downloading the game from the Playstore or Appstore. Games such as Temple Run, Subway surfers, angry birds and the latest Super Mario Run were a major hit in India because of free Downloads. Also, the other interesting factor to note is that these games live up to the expectations of people with its invigorating game play. Many of these games could even be played offline and your progress levels will be counted once you go online.
Zero Monetisation
The major reason for Indian gaming industry for becoming a strong Global market leader in terms of Downloads and revenues is that we haven’t started focusing on in-app purchasing, in-app advertising, incentive advertising, and subscription service. Indian games such as Gully Cricket, Real Cricket 16, Best bus 3D gaming are a few games which were built with no in-app features but still made their mark being popular downloads among Indian game lovers. The demonetisation of high-value currency notes and the push for a cashless economy is expected to improve the fortunes of Indian gaming industry in the near future.
Numerous offers from Internet Service providers
Internet service provider companies are already boosting their majority of revenues in the mobility division of their companies by attracting the customers with multiple Internet package offers. As we already know Jio, a MukeshAmbani Enterprise in Telecommunications have already become a strong competitor to all the other Companies in this sector by having introduced the unlimited Usage offer till March 31st in voice and data streams for all their customers. Similarly, all companies have been competing strongly in providing the best offers in data Usage to increase their customer base.
