India Accounts for 18% of Global Android Game Downloads

It further stated that India remains one of the world's most cost-efficient gaming acquisition markets, estimating a 19.9-fold difference between global Android cost-per-install (CPI) benchmarks and India's average CPI.

The report also highlighted differences in advertising economics, with about 22-fold gap between global Android rewarded-video effective cost per mille (eCPM) benchmarks and Indian market eCPMs.

63 per cent of India's overall gaming revenue across platforms is generated through in-app advertising (IAA), it said. 

However, about 70 per cent of Android gaming revenue comes from in-app purchases (IAP), indicating platform-specific monetisation strategies.

Casual, hypercasual and mid-core or hardcore games together accounted for 57.5 per cent of game downloads, providing large-scale opportunities for user acquisition, while monetisation models varied across genres.

The report also found that leading global gaming apps generally use a wider mix of user acquisition channels than Indian publishers.

Top global puzzle games utilise an average of 20 acquisition channels, compared with 14 in India, while card and board games use 17 channels globally against nine in the Indian market.

Moreover, the report showed that Google's ecosystem remained the largest contributor to gaming installs in India, while original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and alternative app distribution channels together accounted for around one-fourth of installs.