India's gaming sector has the potential to create five decacorns and ten unicorns with the support of a conducive regulatory framework, potentially unlocking shareholder value worth over $26 billion in coming years, a report released by real-money gaming company WinZO and industry body Interactive Entertainment and Innovation Council (IEIC) said on March 19.
A decacorn is a private company valued at over $10 billion.
The report was released in partnership with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB), industry association Game Developers Association of India (GDAI), and Nazara Technologies, a gaming and sports media company, and was launched at the inauguration of the second edition of the India Pavilion at the ongoing Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.
"India stands at the cusp of a remarkable transformation in the global gaming and technology ecosystem,” said Srikar Reddy, Consul General of India at San Francisco in a statement.
"As one of the fastest-growing digital economies, our nation’s gaming sector is not just an entertainment powerhouse but a significant driver of technological innovation, job creation, and investment" he said.
India’s only publicly-listed gaming company, Nazara Technologies commands the highest premium among the globally-listed gaming companies, the report said.
"Similar multiples applied to the current online gaming sector’s market size of $3.7 billion conservatively estimate a minimum of $26 billion in investor value waiting to be unlocked through IPOs. Once the market reaches its projections of $9.1 billion by 2029, it will unleash $63 billion of investor value," it added.
India currently has 591 million gamers, representing about 20 percent of the global gamer base, and around 1,900 gaming companies employing 1.30 lakh highly-skilled professionals, the report stated.
It also mentioned that the sector has received $2.8 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) till 2024, of which 85 percent went to real-money gaming segment.
"As we continue to push boundaries in technology innovation, IP creation, and engagement, WinZO remains committed to shaping India into a global gaming powerhouse" WinZO’s co-founder, Paavan Nanda said in a statement.
Real-money games (RMG)—where users make a deposit in cash or kind with the expectation of earning winnings—accounted for 85.7 percent of the sector’s revenue in 2024, generating $3.2 billion out of a total pie of $3.7 billion.
The segment, however, is navigating through a turbulent period due to lack of regulatory clarity and the impact of the 28 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
Need for Regulatory Clarity
Over the years, several RMG companies have pushed for a uniform central regulation to eliminate the uncertainty of navigating through various state-specific regulations that frequently disrupts their business operations.
A central regulation is also crucial to fight the menace of illegal offshore gaming operators since a state law cannot be enforced against a foreign operator, executives have previously told Moneycontrol.
In April 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) notified gaming-related amendments to the IT Act, 2021, which allowed multiple self-regulatory organisations (SROs) to determine whether a real-money game could be permitted in India or not. However, the ministry is said to have later dropped the SRO plan.
The government is now said to be in early stages of formulating a single legal framework to regulate the country's real-money gaming industry.
Additionally, real-money gaming companies have also sought for rational tax policies and reforms to address taxation issues in the sector. This includes reducing the GST rate, rationalising tax deducted at source (TDS) norms, and resolving retrospective taxation issues.
A conducive regulatory framework could help the sector reach a market size of $60 billion by 2034, with second-order effects such as creation of over 20 lakh jobs, increased FDI, and the global export of Indian intellectual property (IP), the report said.
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