DYNAMICS OF THE

INDIAN MOBILE GAMING

INDUSTRY
DYNAMICS OF THE
INDIAN MOBILE GAMING
INDUSTRY
FOREWORD
The Indian Mobile Gaming Industry has grown to be a US$29 million market
in a short period of time and is expected to grow to $250 million by 2010.
With the changing dynamics in the industry with respect to handsets,
pricing models, operator focus and discovery of content we see very
exciting times ahead for the Indian mobile games industry.

Indiagames - India's benchmark mobile and online games company, has

released the first ever focused research on the Dynamics of the Indian
Mobile Gaming Business. The study covers various aspects of the Indian
mobile gaming industry like user profiles and statistics on operator shares,
pricing, download details, top titles, genres, circles and handsets. As a
market leader in the space with a dominant share in the industry,
Indiagames has published for the 1st time, its unique insights on the
business and shared its estimates of where the mobile games industry is
headed over the next 3 years.

We are confident this abridged document of our findings would be of

interest to anyone wanting to know more about the Indian mobile gaming
industry and its potential.

-Cyril Ferry
Vice President India and APAC
Indiagames
 DYNAMICS OF THE
INDIAN MOBILE GAMING
INDUSTRY
Mobile Games Growth 2004-2007
After going through a phase of consolidation in 2006, the Indian mobile
gaming market saw some aggressive growth in 2007. In fact the market for
mobile games grew by as much as 43% with the bulk of this growth coming
in the second half of the year. At end user price the industry is currently
valued at approximately US$ 29 million. Our outlook is very positive on the
growth of the industry over the next few years and as per our estimates we
expect the mobile games business to reach US$250 million by 2010, at an
annualized growth rate of 106%.
The growth in
Market Size market size is
l a r g e l y
35 120.00%
30
29 attributed to
100.00%
25 20 80.00%
the changing
20
12 14 60.00% dynamics in
15
10 6 40.00% the industry
5 20.00% such as the
0 0.00% e a s y
Jan-Dec 04 Jan-Dec 05 Jan-Dec 06 Jan-Dec 07 Current - availability of
Annualised
affordable
USD mn Grow th (Rt axis) G P R S
handsets as
well as initiatives
taken at the 2010 Market Potential
operator end such
Game revenues are in as removal of 300.00
252
fact larger than music on subscription 250.00
GPRS with some operators. charges on GPRS
USD mn

200.00
A high end user could spend access. As a result, 150.00 126
as much as US$20 a month there are over 100.00
50
on games – almost 2.5x the 100,000 downloads 50.00 29
average revenue per user in a day at an average 0.00
India. We expect the price point of Rs.30 Current - Jan-Dec 08 Jan-Dec 09 Jan-Dec 10
market to grow (US$0.75). The Top Annualised
aggressively in the coming 100 users download
years with our 2010
on an average US$20 of games per month. Interestingly the unique user
estimates at around USD
250 million. — base is up 85% from 6 months ago. In 2010 we expect the market to have a
5%-6% gamer penetration with 20-24 million gamers generating a gaming
Vishal Gondal - Founder & ARPU of $1 per month at 1.5 game downloads per user. This results in a
CEO, Indiagames market size ranging between US$ 240 – US$ 288 million.

Disclaimer: The data presented in the report may not be an actual representation of the Industry as it is based on Indiagames internal findings and
interviews with key trade professionals. We assume no responsibility for any inadvertent errors.
 KEY INDUSTRY STATISTICS
1.Top 3 Operators

Rank Operator
1 Airtel
2 Vodafone
3 Reliance
4 Tata
Traditionally, Airtel has had the largest share in games, but last year saw both
Vodafone and Reliance catch up considerably in market share. Tata has a
considerably large share given the relative size of its subscriber base.

CDMA
31%
2.Revenue Split By Access Technology
Based on revenues, GSM has a share of 79% as
compared to CDMA’s 21%.

GSM
79%

CDMA
We’ve seen aggressive 30%
growth of 43% in the
market in the last one year
with the key genres being 3.Market Share By Downloads
a c t i o n , c r i c k e t a n d Based on downloads, GSM has a share
Hollywood based titles. The of 70% as compared to CDMA’s 30%
surge in unique users by GSM
about 85% in the last 6 70%
months can be largely
attributed to free GPRS The lower price points in CDMA account for this skew in Revenues v/s
access schemes and
Downloads
proliferation of affordable
GPRS handsets. —
Samir Bangara, COO,
Indiagames

Disclaimer: The data presented in the report may not be an actual representation of the Industry as it is based on
Indiagames internal findings and interviews with key trade professionals. We assume no responsibility for any
inadvertent errors.
PRICING
1.Effective End User Price

Average Price points

40.00 35.49 1.00

35.00 0.89
0.80
30.00
25.00 22.25
0.60

USD
0.56
20.00 14.45
15.00 0.36 0.40
10.00
0.20
5.00
0.00 0.00
GSM CDMA CDMA ex Rel BREW

The average mobile game download price on the GSM platform is INR 35.5 (US$
0.89) as compared to CDMA's INR 22.25 (US$0.56).
* The CDMA price point is actually significantly lower if stripped of Reliance BREW downloads where
the pricing is as high as 99 per download. This is in sharp contrast to the Java downloads pricing and
R-lite games pricing at INR 5 and INR 7 per play.

2.Download by Price Point

2007 was a rather interesting year as 100 150
0% 1%
operators experimented with different
pricing models and price points. GSM 75 99
99 55
operators launched per play pricing 0% 15%
15% 21%
21%
models a la Reliance and Reliance's share
of BREW downloads at INR 99 and INR 50
10
10
increased significantly over the Java 10%
50
50
game downloads. 27%
27% 15
30 1%
The chart shows the various GSM price 30
24%
24% 20
points and their share of downloads
1%

Disclaimer: The data presented in the report may not be an actual representation of the Industry as it is based on
Indiagames internal findings and interviews with key trade professionals. We assume no responsibility for any
inadvertent errors.
Downloads By Time of Day
This information would be of great interest to those studying media
consumption patterns.
Percentage downloads by hours

7.00
6.00
% of downloads 5.00
4.00
3.00
2.00
1.00
-
00-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-13
13-14
14-15
15-16
16-17
17-18
18-19
19-20
20-21
21-22
22-23
23-00
Time of day

Downloads split by time (GSM) are fairly consistent through out the day with
peak download times being between 1pm-5pm and 7pm to 11pm.
Downloads are also influenced by timings of WAP pushes by operators which are
likely to hit customers in off peak hours. Hence as seen in our recent online
gaming report, mobile game downloads also seem to be eating into prime time
TV viewing time bands.

TOP 10 MOBILE GAME TITLES AND GENRES

Rank Game Publisher* Genre

1 2020 Cricket Indiagames Cricket
2 Harry Potter And The Order of The Phoenix Electronic Arts Hollywood
3 Moto GP THQ Wireless Racing
4 WWE Raw THQ Wireless Action
5 Brian Lara Cricket 2007 Glu Cricket
6 Transformers Glu Hollywood
7 Sachin’s Spin Nazara Cricket
8 Cricket Champions Trophy Indiagames Cricket
9 Bruce Lee Indiagames Action
10 Fast & Furious I–Play Racing
* In India, EA, THQ Wireless, Glu and I-Play mobile games are distributed by Indiagames

The top 10 games comprise a good mix of Cricket, Hollywood and Action based
games with Cricket being the pre-dominant game, with 4 games in the Top 10 a
true indicator that real life consumer passions also extend to the mobile
gaming front.

Disclaimer: The data presented in the report may not be an actual representation of the Industry as it is based on
Indiagames internal findings and interviews with key trade professionals. We assume no responsibility for any
inadvertent errors.
TOP 10 GAMING HANDSETS

14% 12%
12%
10%
8% 6% 5% 6%
5% 4% 4%
6% 4% 4% 4%
4%
2%
0%

NokiaN73-1

NokiaN73-1
Nokia6030

Nokia6070

Nokia6600

Nokia3220

Nokia6020
Nokia6300

Nokia5200
NokiaN73-

Nokia2626

NokiaN70-
1

1
Nokia continues to be the undisputed leader with all 10 positions being
occupied by Nokia handsets. We hope to see other handset manufacturers
making a serious attempt to break into this Top 10 list in 2008.

TOP 10 GSM CIRCLES

20% 16%
15% 13% 13% 12%
10% 8%
6% 6% 4% 4% 4%
5%
0%
Pradesh

Punjab

Tamilnadu
Mumbai

Delhi
Gujarat

Karnataka

Maharashtra

Rajasthan
UP(E)
Andhra

PSYCHOGRAPHIC 6-12
10%
Mobile gaming continues to remain a largely 35+
25%
male bastion, with the largest users in the 22-
35 age bracket which accounts for 40% of all 13-21
downloads. The 13-21 as well as the 35+ age 25%
groups both account for 25% of all game
downloads, followed by the 6-12 which
accounts for the remaining 10%. 22-35
40%

Disclaimer: The data presented in the report may not be an actual representation of the Industry as it is based on
Indiagames internal findings and interviews with key trade professionals. We assume no responsibility for any
inadvertent errors.