At an estimated 641 mn players, gaming will be key as India aims to be an $8-trillion economy: Meta India MD

Sandhya Devanathan, VP and MD, Meta India

Tech giant Meta sees its next big India opportunity to be in gaming as it expects the sector to contribute a significant portion of the country’s $1-trillion digital economy, with a projected 641 million gamers, said India MD Sandhya Devanathan.

Devanathan was speaking at the first India edition of Meta Gaming Summit in Mumbai on March 14.

This comes at a time when India’s gaming sector is maturing, with users showing more sophisticated behavior and habits, and the industry reaching an inflection point in terms of scale.

“While we aim to be an $8-trillion-dollar economy, a trillion dollar of that is going to come from the digital economy. And gaming will be a very significant part of that, we will be looking at about 641 million gamers projected, that's like a big chunk of our population,” Devanathan said.

She added: “The gaming ecosystem along with its brands will be almost worth $7.5 billion. Around 250,000 jobs (in India) are being created in gaming by just 2025. These are pretty massive stats. If we continue to see the kind of growth in the economy -- branching out to gaming – we can potentially even look at gaming being export oriented for us.”

According to Arun Srinivas, Director and Head (India), Ads Business, Meta, India is the fastest growing market in terms of gaming. The country is seeing this growth across major markets, also driven by it huge young population.

India's online gaming industry revenues are expected to touch $7.5 billion by FY28, from $3.1 billion in FY23, according to a report by Lumikai, a gaming and interactive media-focused venture fund.

Devanathan shared that around 81 percent of the Meta’s investments are focused on enabling people, creators and businesses on its platform.

Focus on business messaging

Last month, Devanathan said that Meta is doubling down on its focus on WhatsApp Business in India, where the social media giant is seeing around 60 percent of its users interacting with businesses on the messaging app every week.

Meta’s other key focus area Reels too has seen tremendous success in India. The company is even likely to set up its first data centre in India to cater to the growing demand, Moneycontrol had exclusively reported.

Also read: Meta India head Sandhya Devanathan on WhatsApp monetisation strategy, key focus areas, more

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