Indians will spend more on online gaming than on films by 2025: EY-Ficci

Sector is growing at twice the pace of filmed entertainment, study shows

Online gaming revenues are set to exceed those of filmed entertainment by 2025.

The filmed entertainment segment’s 2019 pre-pandemic revenue of Rs 19,100 crore was nearly three times that of online gaming’s (Rs 6,500 crore), shows data from the Ficci-EY media and entertainment (M&E) sector report released earlier this month.

The pandemic brought down movie revenues by 62 per cent. It is only estimated to recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 with Rs 19,400 crore in revenue.

The online gaming industry, meanwhile, continued to grow. It is estimated to have revenues of Rs 16,700 crore in 2023. This is expected to reach Rs 23,100 crore by 2025, higher than film revenues of Rs 22,800 crore for the same year. This would mark online gaming's decisive move ahead of films, aside from the fluctuations seen during the pandemic when films were virtually shut down.

Filmed entertainment mainly consists of money from theatre releases. But it also includes broadcast rights and revenue from platforms like Netflix and in-cinema advertising.

Online gaming includes transaction-based game revenues such as through rummy and poker. Esports and casual gaming as well as advertising revenue contribute the rest.

The report reveals that as interest in online gaming increases, the segment is expected to demonstrate a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 per cent till 2025, compared to 9.8 per cent for filmed entertainment.  The overall media and entertainment sector is expected to grow at 10.5 per cent, led by growth in digital media and other segments. The least growth is shown by the print segment, with an overall growth down to 3.7 per cent.

The proportion of M&E sector revenues accounted for by traditional media (television, print, filmed entertainment, out-of-home media like billboards, music, and radio) fell from 71 per cent in 2019 to 58 per cent in 2022. While television remained the largest category (Rs 70,900 crore in 2022), digital media solidified its position as the second largest (Rs 57,100 crore in 2022).