Mumbai: India’s gaming market matures as player spending deepens; projected to reach $2.4 Billion in revenue by 2029.
MIXI Global Investments (MGI), a global investor in digital entertainment, today released India’s State of Play, a new report authored by Naavik, powered by Sensor Tower, with support from AppsFlyer. The report finds that India’s mobile gaming market is maturing, its long-established scale is now being matched by rising player spending and a widening mix of genres.
Between 2020 and 2025, in-app purchase (IAP) revenue more than doubled even as download volumes held broadly steady, the clearest signal that one of the world’s largest gaming audiences is now beginning to monetise.
Combined in-app and advertising revenue reached roughly $1.1 billion in 2025, is projected to hit $1.5 billion in 2026, and is on track to reach $2.4 billion by 2029.
India remains one of the largest gaming markets in the world by volume, with 600 million active players, up 9% year over year, and nearly 8 billion mobile game installs in 2025, trailing only China on downloads. While the data points to robust growth, the report highlights a more consequential narrative with a fundamental qualitative shift. As smartphone adoption deepens, digital payments expand and the player base ages, spending per user is beginning to catch up with India’s long-established reach.
Growth is spreading well beyond shooters: For years, India’s revenue was concentrated in a single genre. Shooter titles, led by Free Fire MAX and Battlegrounds Mobile India, still command the largest share of in-app spending, at roughly 43% of the total. What has changed is where the growth now comes from. Strategy has emerged as a standout, with the 4X subgenre growing 77% year over year, while newer niches expanded even faster. MOBA revenue more than tripled and card battlers grew over 90%.
Geolocation was 2025’s fastest-growing genre by revenue, up 75% on the back of localised live operations, and simulation surged on the strength of Roblox’s breakout year. Revenue is no longer riding one category; it is broadening across many.
The audience is diversifying: India’s gaming population still skews young and male overall, but the composition is beginning to widen. Puzzle games now draw close to 45% female players, lifestyle titles approach gender parity, and puzzle audiences skew notably older, with more than half of players aged 35 and above. These shifts point to incremental growth from segments that have historically been underserved, and to a market whose next wave of players will not look like its last.
“India has been one of the world’s largest gaming audiences for some time, but what the data now shows is a market maturing with revenue deepening, growth spreading across genres, and a widening range of players. That combination of scale and diversification is what makes this moment worth watching,” said Tomoharu Urabe, MD, Investment at MIXI Global Investments.
Across the data, culturally rooted experiences continue to outperform global franchises on reach. Ludo King and Cricket League lead the download charts, and Indian studios built five of the ten most-downloaded games of 2025. Global hits succeed through deep local adaptation, India-specific versions optimised for lower-end devices, regional live events, and local esports, while ‘Made in India’ titles such as ScarFall 2.0 are beginning to show higher production values aimed squarely at domestic audiences.
A broader analysis of the MIXI Global Investments’ report also covers India’s expanding developer ecosystem, now more than 2,000 companies employing over 130,000 professionals, and adjacent categories such as microdramas, where India has become the world’s largest market by download volume.
