India could become biggest cloud-streamed gaming market as soon as 2033, finds new Bloomberg Intelligence report

• India’s accelerated pace of 5G deployment could help its cloud-streamed gaming (CSG) revenue surpass the US and China to make it the world’s biggest market by 2033
• Bloomberg Intelligence expect the nation’s average revenue per user (ARPU) to rise 15% on average annually, faster than 10% pace worldwide
• The spread of gaming as a career among Indians, along with their high proclivity to use 5G for gaming and world-beating time spent on mobile apps, points to the likely proliferation of cloud gaming

London, 8 August 2024 – India could become the largest cloud-streamed gaming (CSG) market in the next ten years, according to a new report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI). India’s market is due to grow thanks to large populations of Gen Alpha and Gen Z demographics with a high affinity for gaming, as well as the nation’s rapid migration to 5G and the rise of professional gamers further driving this trend. Moreover, in 2022 India recognized electronic sports as an official sporting event, joining nations such as the US, Germany and South Korea.

BI’s scenario sees India’s average revenue per user (ARPU) rise 15% on average annually vs. 10% in the global market. However, India’s relatively low ARPU would be more than offset by its population size, with BI’s scenario seeing 56 million monthly active users (MAU) there in 10 years compared to 14 million for the US and China’s 37 million.

Cloud-streamed gaming services let players stream games from remote servers, which are hosted at data centers equipped with hardware that boasts high processing speed, storage and internet bandwidth.

Nathan Naidu, Technology Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence commented: “Mature CSG markets such as the US and China, which together drive over one-third of sales worldwide, could cede share marginally over the next 10 years to emerging markets such as South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America. In particular India, buoyed by demographic tailwinds and an online population that sees gaming as a primary form of entertainment, could see the strongest growth with accelerated pace of 5G deployment.”

BI’s report predicts global CSG sales could grow 28% annually in 2023-33 to top $40 billion as the mobile arms of Microsoft, Nvidia and Sony tap opportunities in emerging markets and Apple opens its ecosystem to game-streaming apps. Among other key take-aways, the report argues that attention is increasingly shifting toward mobile screens and generative AI are likely to make playing games on dedicated hardware obsolete, spelling the death of console gaming in the long term.

India’s Rise of Professional Gamers to Aid Cloud-Gaming Spread

The spread of gaming as a career among Indians, along with their high proclivity to use 5G for gaming and world-beating time spent on mobile apps, points to the likely proliferation of cloud gaming. Indian professional gamers can earn a living that’s more than double the national income per capita, surveys show.

According to an Ericsson ConsumerLab survey of 3,000 Indian smartphone users, one in five Indians would pay a 14% premium over generic services for 5G application bundles that include video on demand, gaming and music services. These are strong signals that average revenue per user will rise among Indian CSG users over time. The bulk of CSG services in the country are currently supported by ads, meaning users watch video ads in exchange for free gaming.

Nathan Naidu, Technology Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence continued: “Compared to users of 5G internet in other nations including Australia, the US and China, Indian 5G users show significantly higher-than-average engagement across various digital services. Indian 5G users who employ services such as high-definition video calling, multi-player mobile gaming, streaming electronic-sport content and augmented reality tend to spend two hours more per week than the group’s average in engaging with those services.”

About three-quarters of India’s Gen Z identify as serious video-gamers, while more than half of Indian gamers think they could make a career playing games professionally, according to HP’s 2023 Gaming Landscape Study.

Indians aren’t high spenders across any category of mobile app compared to mainland Chinese gamers, adds BI. But strong engagement and a growing proportion of internet users who are willing to spend suggest monetization in India could catch up with China over the next 5-10 years. In 2023 Indians spent 1.19 trillion hours across all mobile apps, the most globally. Such figures support monetization models where users “pay” with their time by engaging with ads in exchange for free gameplay.

To receive a copy of this comprehensive report, please contact BloombergIntelligence@citigatedewerogerson.com.

Oktavia Catsaros
Bloomberg Intelligence
ocatsaros@bloomberg.net

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