Zerodha Founder Nikhil Kamath Shares Some Shocking Facts About The Indian Gaming and Esports Industry

Nikhil Kamath is the founder of Zerodha, a discount brokerage firm which is now considered to be the biggest broking firm in India. The self-made entrepreneur made it to the Forbes Billionaires List both in 2020 and 2023 and has over 13 years of experience in software development. In a Twitter post today, he shared some fascinating information about the Indian gaming and Esports industry and the potential it holds to overpower the colossal Movie and Music Industries combined! 

Nikhil Kamath says interactive forms of content might be the most sought-after forms of entertainment over the next decade and that Esports will act as a credible platform to invest in, even beating out IPL Cricket teams.

The Indian Gaming Industry Can Potentially Create Over 1 Lakh Jobs in 2023

In the shared Twitter thread, we can observe engrossing information about the Indian gaming Industry. Currently, there are over 50,000 people who are employed in the industry among which 15,000 are programmers and developers. This is set to change and it is predicted that over 1 Lakh jobs will be available by the end of the financial year across various roles like game developers, animators, graphic designers, game journalists, web analysts etc. This was confirmed by a report titled Gaming: Tomorrow’s Blockbuster

Esports Will Become the Next Sensation in India

As pointed out by Nikhil, Esports can possibly be the next big thing. It has the potential to generate 100 billion INR of economic value by 2025. Furthermore, the prize pool of Esports events is certainly expected to beat the prize pool of the hugely-known Indian Premier League by 2025. It is estimated to be a whopping 1 Billion INR as opposed to the 650 Million INR for the IPL.

Esports was officially recognized as a multi-sport event by the Indian government on 23rd December 2022.  It is estimated that by 2025, the Esports Industry will reach 11 Billion INR in revenue.

Indian Gaming Industry’s Revenue

In 2022, Indians contributed to 17% of the global downloads which was the highest across several countries. Furthermore, the industry clocked $2.6 Billion USD in revenue that year, and it is expected to reach a whopping $8.6 Billion USD in 2027.

Real Money Gaming (RMG) is set to grow at a rate of 25% while mid-core games like BGMI, Free-fire, and Genshin Impact are set to grow at a rate of 32% by 2027. E-sports, streaming and other services will also grow by 32%.