Indian gaming market to reach $6-7 billion in value by 2025
A report by IAMAI in collaboration with OnePlus and RedSeer has estimated that the Indian gaming market is poised to reach $3.9 billion in value by 2025. The report also highlighted that 40% of the hardcore gamers pay for their games with an average spend of Rs 230 per month. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the organic growth of digital games as mobile app downloads grew by 50% and user engagement went up by 20%, the study says. The increased gaming time has spurred the growth of hardcore gamers in India, even as casual games remain the most popular genre in India.India is currently home to over 430 million mobile gamers and the number of gamers is estimated to grow to 650 million by 2025. Currently, mobile gaming is contributing more than 90% to the $1.6 billion gaming market. 40% of the hardcore gamers pay for their games with an average spend of Rs 230 per month.
Facebook rolls out new Page experience for users in India
Facebook has announced the rollout of a new Page design in the country that will make it simpler for public figures and creators to build community and achieve their business objectives. Some of the new features include an intuitive layout with a crisper look and feel, making it easy to navigate between a personal profile and a public Page. There will also be a dedicated news feed to Pages for the first time which will bring about new ways to engage by helping discovery and joining conversations, Facebook said in a statement.Some of the new features include an intuitive layout with a crisper look and feel, making it easy to navigate between a personal profile and a public Page. “This will make it easy to follow trends, interact with peers and engage with fans. The dedicated News Feed will also suggest new connections such as other public figures, Pages, Groups and trending content that a Page or public figure cares about,” it added. A new text-based Q&A format is being introduced to support richer, interactive conversations.
Telangana develops smartphone-based e-voting app
The country’s first smartphone-based e-voting solution has been developed by the Telangana government and a dry run will be held in Khammam district soon. The software helps some voters, including senior citizens, persons with disabilities, those employed in notified essential services, polling personnel, and patients who can’t vote physically. Technical support for this project was provided by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC). The development has also been guided by an expert committee comprising professor Rajat Moona, director of IIT-Bhilai and technical advisor to the Election Commission, and professors from IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi.
By 2025, three in four internet users will consume short-form videos
With more people staying at home, online video consumption, which was already witnessing a massive surge, has skyrocketed in the last one year. India’s online video user base has scaled to more than 350 million people, growing at 24% annually from 2018 to 2020—two times faster than countries such as China and Indonesia, the report “Online videos in India – The long and short of it” by Bain & Company revealed. Time spent on online videos per daily active user per day has increased by 60% to 70% over this period. Despite this rapid boom, there exists massive headroom for growth—online video user penetration in India is nearly 60% of Internet users, compared with more than 90% in China, the report pointed out. Most of this time — a staggering one hour per day for a smartphone user — is spent consuming videos. What’s more, in India the short-form videos (SFV) market has exploded over the past two years—growing 3.5 times in user base and 12 times in total time spent by all users on SFV platforms. More than 200 million Indians watched SFVs at least once in 2020, with an active user spending up to 45 minutes a day on these platforms. By 2025, three in four internet users, or 600 million to 650 million Indians, will consume SFV, on average spending up to 55 to 60 minutes per day on SFV platforms. What’s more, in India the short-form videos (SFV) market has exploded over the past two years—growing 3.5 times in user base and 12 times in total time spent by all users on SFV platform.
Facebook Gaming platform launches co-streaming
The Facebook Gaming platform has designed the co-streaming experience to enable discoverability for gaming video creators and encourage collaboration between them. Creators will be able to search for and tag up to three gaming creators directly from Live Producer left rail when going live or Live Producer Gaming Tab edit stream module. The co-streaming viewer experience will be turned on once the other creator tags them back and they see a confirmation green check icon next to their name. Creators have the option to disable the experience at any point in time during the broadcast by editing the stream details module.Co-streaming on the Facebook Gaming platform will allow users to watch two different perspectives simultaneously and intends to improve the creator streaming experience.
Confederation of Indian E-commerce announced; to bring govt, industry, consumers on one platform
An apex association of e-commerce companies has been announced under the aegis of the Confederation of Indian E-commerce (CIE) to provide a neutral voice of the industry by bringing the government, industry, policymakers and consumers on one platform. CIE, which has been formed as a trust and not-for-profit organisation, will be based out of New Delhi. Key e-commerce companies as well as retail, MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) and farmers associations are being invited to be active members of the CIE. “CIE aims to provide a dedicated platform for the retail and e-commerce companies to take up economic or policy issues with the government and other relevant agencies, support to MSMEs and traditional retail, promotion of exports and access to export markets, and easing regulatory compliances for export and returns by encouraging exports,” according to a statement.
Google launches GNI Advertising Lab
After launching Google News Showcase in India, tech giant Google has launched Google News Initiative Advertising Lab programme in the country to support small and medium-sized news publishers producing original news for local and regional communities. The primary focus of the programme is on improving digital infrastructure, with a goal to uplift their digital advertising revenue through tailored training and diagnosis led by expert consultants, as well as hands-on technical implementation support for online asset optimization. The programme will select up to 800 small to medium news publishers and work closely with a select subset to guide them through the optimization / setup of their content management systems, websites, and ad setups.