Key points:
- India’s smartphone gaming is now on the rise.
- Three in five gamers around the board claim that mobile gaming allowed them during the lockdown time to conquer social isolation.
- Casual gamers reported playing for ‘fun’ (47%), while serious gamers found ‘stress relief’ (40%).
- Phone heating, quick battery discharge, and sluggish network are the top three pain points for mobile gamers.
- The best two brands that Indian gamers are conscious of are Qualcomm (65%) and MediaTek (61%).
India’s smartphone gaming is now on the rise, fuelled by customers remaining at home in the wake of the pandemic-induced lockdown.
As per the CMR report:
Mobile gaming has risen from three in every five serious gamers, according to a recent CMR survey, The Next-Gen Mobile Consumer, with four hours being an average rise in length since the lockout began in India.
Gaming in Lockdown:
Interestingly, the report points out the change from free to premium game applications in line with the increased time spent on mobile gaming. Interestingly, after the lockdown, 15% of players moved to pay for smartphone gaming software.
The rise of mobile gaming in India:
Three in five gamers around the board claim that mobile gaming allowed them during the lockdown time to conquer social isolation.
In India, the rise of mobile gaming led by strong smartphones, through price points, and enabled by stable internet, is driving mobile gaming.
Mobile gaming in India is driven by a variety of gamer personas, from the extreme to the hyper-casual players. In terms of the time spent, the formats played, the locations played, and most notably, their outlook for each other, they vary from each other.
Indians prefer to play smartphone games relying on family and friend reviews, as per the CMR report. The Indians have seven games loaded on their smartphones an average. There are at least four such games that they daily play.
Games mostly prefered by Indian gamers:
Mostly, Indians play action/adventure games led by first-person shooter games. Popular first-person shooter games are ‘Garena Free Fire and ‘Call of Duty Mobile’.’
Although the use of mobile as a way to work, learn, and connect has been pushed by Covid-19, it also provides customers with some much-needed immersive and creative content. Casual gamers reported playing for ‘fun’ (47%), while serious gamers found ‘stress relief’ (40%).
Problems faced by Indian Mobile Gamers:
“Phone heating, quick battery discharge, and sluggish network are the top three pain points for mobile gamers.
Moving forward, mobile gamers demand more from their smartphones: more RAM, improved battery life, increased storage and efficient SoCs,” stated Amit Sharma, CMR, Analyst- Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR.
“Whether it’s an extreme, casual, or hyper-casual gamer, the main necessity for today’s gamer is the need for a better gaming experience.
And surprisingly, customers today are well assured that the overall experience is allowed and improved by the Gaming SoC,” Prabhu added.
The Top brands for which Indian are conscious:
The top two brands that Indian gamers are conscious of are Qualcomm (65%) and MediaTek (61%). It is important to note, yet, that far more serious gamers show a MediaTek preference (68 per cent) over Qualcomm (66 per cent).
