- Maharashtra has the highest number of women mobile-phone gamers, followed by Delhi-NCR, Andhra-Telangana, West Bengal and Karnataka.
- It is due to around 49% of the women gamers in India, who started playing during the pandemic, the overall number of gamers in the country has gone up 1.7 times between July 2020 and April 2021.
- Most of these married women gamers use smartphones and are above the age of 34.
MUMBAI: These interesting revelations have been made by over 240 women gamers from across the country who participated in an online survey on 'InMobi Pulse advertising audiences platform' and 'VTION', a digital consumer behaviour and analytics company, earlier this year. The survey has used patent-protected technology to passively measure and analyse android smartphone consumption across various categories of apps on a real-time basis.
These women are now serious gamers, as around 35% play for 53 minutes a day, a significant amount of time. Interestingly, women in Bengal are playing for 67 minutes a day, more than the national average of 53%. The majority of Indian women, 75% and above, are committed gamers, playing mobile games every day.
Committed gamers enjoy playing a wide variety of games and can have up to 95 downloaded games on their devices. They also tend to explore newer games.
The majority of women, as per the survey, are playing action and strategy games followed by sports, casual, board and cards. Similarly more game downloading among women gamers has been witnessed in western states, especially Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat, followed by north-central and those in the eastern part.
Piyush Kumar, founder and chief executive officer of Rooter, said the gaming market in India is expected to generate USD 3-5 billion by 2023 and revenue coming from game streaming would be around USD 300-400 million. "And in this growing perpendicular, women gamers are making their way to the bigger picture. We are also planning to hire more than 1,000 women gamers in the next three months. Today mobile gaming is transforming the dynamics of the gaming industry to its core and, in the next few years, we will see many more women gamers and e-sports athletes setting a new benchmark in the gaming universe."
Gamer Paridhi Jain from Delhi, who in the gaming world is known as Curlbury, said the women gaming community in India is expanding on a daily basis. "I’m glad to see the kind of positive response and support we’re receiving from society, which is obviously helping us to push ourselves even further." Another gamer Radhe Joiser, 21, from Jamnagar, Gujarat, who in the gaming world is known as Little Drunk Girl, said the pandemic has also played a prominent role in the growth of women streamers. In the streaming sector, we can see the number of girl gamers increasing day by day, she adds.
Naman Jhawar, senior vice-president, strategy and operations, Mobile
Premier League (MPL), said over the last year, they have seen a substantial increase in the share of women gamers as home-makers and college students are looking to supplement their income by playing skill games that they would typically play for leisure. “We have also noticed that many of our e-sports tournaments in the past were won by women gamers.”