MUMBAI: India’s top telcos Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea bolster plans to leverage emerging gaming and esports segment expected to see strong growth and investment amid faster speeds and low latency with 5G rollout services coming soon in India.
All three telcos said that gaming will be a core of their business strategy going forward, as they aim to boost average revenue per user (ARPU) by attracting more subscribers and increasing user stickiness. E-sports is a subcategory of online gaming, which is a multiplayer video game played competitively in front of spectators, usually by professional gamers.
A November 2021 report by the Boston Consulting Group and Sequoia India estimated that the Indian online gaming industry, including e-sports, will reach $5 billion by 2025, up from $1.8 billion in November 2021. smartphones in India has already crossed the 50 million mark.
Within a week of the 5G auctions closing, telecom market leader Jio announced its JioGamesWatch platform that enables live streaming and engagement of creators and viewers across multiple Jio devices. The carrier was the biggest spender in 5G sales, picking up 24.74GHz of ether for Rs 88,078 crore.
Adarsh Nair, chief executive officer, Airtel Digital, told ET that gamers are a critical cohort of customers for Airtel. He added that as gamers demand higher bandwidth and lower latency connections, this is an important segment for the company’s broadband business and its future 5G business.
“Like Wynk Music and Xstream Video, we will soon be launching an Airtel gaming app that addresses the needs of gamers. Going forward, cloud gaming and related products will also be part of the Airtel gaming initiative,” he said.
Airtel was the second highest bidder in the auctions, with 19.867 GHz spectrum for Rs 43.084 crore.
Revenue models for the app will include ads, Nair added. He expected that gamers would prefer mobile and broadband bundles with a higher ARPU.
In the future, the telco will actively engage in dialogue with e-athletes. “Airtel will support gamers early in their lifecycle to stream, watch and compete. We hope to provide the platform where we can create emerging talent who can then turn pro and join professional esports.”
Airtel will also look into partnerships with esports companies, a strategy that will also be followed by Vodafone Idea.
“We have a very clear roadmap to build propositions across different facets of gaming – such as cloud gaming, social gaming, game stores, esports.” said Avneesh Khosla, chief marketing officer, Vodafone Idea. The “gaming proposition (will) grow in the coming months and quarters”.
Vodafone Idea spent Rs 18,799 crore to pick up 6.228 GHz of ether.
A FICCI EY Media and Entertainment Report 2022 estimates the size of the e-sports and casual gaming industry in India at Rs 2880 crore in 2021, a growth of 32% from 2020. The number of e-sports players in the country doubled in a year to reach 600,000 by 2021 and the country now has 100,000 e-sports teams. It is noteworthy that the segment saw a sharp increase in viewership – 2 million hours in 2021 from 600,000 hours in 2020.
The Indian game industry is set to become a $5 billion industry by 2025, with over 450 million online gamers by 2023. OTT streaming is also on the rise in the country.
The report estimated that the total online gaming industry, including fantasy sports, transaction-based games, casual mobile games and professional e-sports, grew by 28% to Rs 10,100 crore in 2021. This is expected to reach Rs 15300 crore in 2024.
Gaming and e-sports are expected to be used to create gluttony among consumers and attract them to the 5G proposition. “In the early stages, gaming/esports would be used to onboard customers to the newly launched 5G networks,” said Pulkit Pandey, principal analyst, Communications Technology Team, CIO Industries Research Group, Gartner.
Analysts add that bundling will become very crucial in driving 5G adoption among consumers, as simply increasing the rates for 5G rollout to consumers may not find traction. Bundling gaming and esports will also help increase ARPUs.
“For the customer stickiness and the increase in ARPU, we should expect a loyal shift of gamers to the 5G networks (when they are launched), regarding the benefits of 5G,” added Pandey.
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