As a thriving start-up ecosystem consolidates its roots in India, the mobile technology industry there has also ballooned since the late 00s. Along with mobile payments and mobile streaming, mobile gaming has also become incredibly popular in the region. A report about the global mobile gaming market revealed that India is ranked fifth in the world and it is expected to reach revenue of $1.1 billion by 2020. It is so popular that Indians spend more time mobile gaming than streaming video.
Affordable Mobile Phones
One major reason for mobile gaming’s popularity in India is that mobile phones have become more affordable. While brands popular in the west, such as the Apple iPhone, are still incredibly expensive, Chinese smartphone makers have entered the market and found success by releasing budget devices with good specs.
Brands like Oppo and Xiaomi are two of the biggest sellers in India and some of the best budget models sold in India are the Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro and the Huawei P20 Lite, both 4GB RAM phones that sell for under $200.
Phone manufacturers that are known for their higher costs have also found ways to reduce the price of their phones for price-savvy Indian mobile consumers. While there are high import fees on phones in India (which is why the iPhone is so expensive), India is becoming a major mobile manufacturing hub, with Samsung having opened the world’s largest mobile manufacturing factory in Noida. The Samsung factory is expected to build 120 million devices by 2020. While this factory is a great win for the Indian economy and the people of Noida, it also allows Samsung to avoid the high import cost of bringing its handsets in from overseas. These cost savings can be passed onto Indian consumers, making these phones more affordable.
This new affordability of phones makes mobile gaming more accessible. While some may be unwilling to pay money for an expensive games console or PC, they can afford to purchase a mobile device and download free to play or premium mobile games.
Better Quality Mobile Games
There’s also the fact that Indian mobile users – like all mobile users around the world – now have access to better quality mobile games. While the first mobile games were fairly primitive, mobile games now feature incredible graphics and entertaining gameplay such as multiplayer and PvP (player versus player) game modes, character customization, and RPG elements. As mobile game developers have gotten better at optimizing their titles for mobile devices and as devices have become more capable, it has all lead to brilliant titles.
This increase in quality has been seen across many genres. In the racing genre of mobile games, developers of titles such as Real Racing 3, Need for Speed: No Limits and GT Racing 2 have been able to create almost photorealistic versions of cars. In online casino games like blackjack and roulette, developers have created mobile-optimized versions that make players feel like they are in a land-based casino. The atmosphere of these casino games and the quality of the graphics (such as how realistic the casino tables look and player avatars) make it so that mobile players have a virtual casino in their pocket. Mobile fighting games like EA Sports UFC, Fight Club and Tekken offer realistic gameplay too. The grimace on a fighter’s face when they are dealt a huge amount of damage, the detail of the fighting arenas, and the sound effects (such as the grunts when a character is attacked) all add to the entertainment and give Indians another reason to play mobile games.
Cheap Mobile Data
Another big part of the increasing popularity of mobile games in India is that mobile data is incredibly cheap in the region. According to a comparison of Indian mobile data prices to mobile data prices in the UK and the United States, India is the winner. One GB of mobile data in India costs just $0.26, compared to $12.37 in the United States.
This price of mobile data is important because it is the primary way that many people access the Internet – and therefore mobile entertainment. There are an estimated 525 million broadband subscribers in India but this figure has stagnated growth because of the affordability of mobile data.
With mobile data being so cheap in India, it means that downloading a mobile game can cost less than a single US dollar. Accessing the connected features of that game, such as online multiplayer, leaderboards and other social gameplay (sharing your stats on social media) are affordable too. Many mobile games, such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, can only be played with an Internet connection. Lack of Internet connection simply isn’t a hurdle in India, a place where getting mobile data and Internet is so cheap.
Mobile game developers seem to be recognizing the popularity of mobile gaming in India and so have launched major marketing campaigns towards Indian gamers, or have localized their games for the Indian market. This involves supporting Hindi (spoken by 425 million Indians), optimizing the Android version (Android has the largest market share in India), and offering apps for free and supported by ads, not as premium titles. This will all help the Indian mobile games market grow, and climb above its number five position.
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