- Niko Partners outlines India as the quickest expanding market in Asia
- A new report compares India to a host of countries in the region with a strong gaming ecosystem
- The projected number of gamers in India is set to reach 529.1 million by 2025
India is leading the way as the fastest-growing market in Asia, out of ten jurisdictions, even though the country faces numerous challenges, per Niko Partners.
India Engages with Gaming in New and Exciting Ways
The latest Asia Games Market Report for 2021 by Niko Partners is out and it focuses on India and how the country has been able to transform itself into one of the fastest-growing markets in Asia. In fact, India is the quickest developing region at the moment, citing the potential number of both PC and mobile gamers at 339.9 million as of 2021.
The report focuses on several distinct jurisdictions that are known for their gaming culture or quick efforts to adopt such, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Chinese Taipei, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and India. The collective number of gamers across all of these jurisdictions is likely to hit 940 million within the next four years.
Right now, India is expected to generate $534.1 million in 2021, as opposed to the expected $1.49 billion the country is expected to be adding by 2025. Interestingly, in terms of revenue and gamers, India is the fastest-growing market, ahead of China, which recently passed a blanket ban on underage gambling, prohibiting any individuals under the age of 18 to participate in gaming for more than a couple of hours a week.
While there are some 340 million gamers in India as of 2021, their expected number is set to reach 529.1 million by 2025, based on both PC and mobile platforms.
India Faces Numerous Challenges to Boost Gaming
This comes in the broader context of the country’s unique challenges India has had a hard time providing hardware to its gamers, this is likely to completely change, as subscription services such as Microsoft Game Pass will usher in a new era of cloud gaming.
Actually, GeForce Now has been doing it at a very affordable rate, making it easy for gamers to never have to commit too badly to degradable hardware to enjoy high-quality gaming in the first place. While Niki is confident that the hardware gap will be closed by the arrival of more affordable tech solutions, one thing that may be hard to overcome is the average speed of the internet in the country.
Despite those difficulties, India is seemingly one of the most engaged markets in the world. Not only that, but India is seemingly big enough to be treated as its own exclusive ecosystem. When Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds decided to quit and then be rebranded as Battlegrounds: Mobile, the game made a promise that it would be only limited to the Indian market. This did not stop teams and organizations from joining in rapidly, even though they would be only limited within the country, a non-issue for most it seemed.
