Gaming unicorn Dream11 onboarded 55 million users in 2023 amid tax battle

At a time when India’s real-money gaming companies are reeling from regulatory challenges and a new tax regime, fantasy gaming platform Dream11 said it onboarded 55 million new users on its platform in 2023.

The company now boasts a total user base of 21 crore gamers, after breaching the 20 crore threshold in October last year.

A majority of users on the platform are between the age of 25-60 years and hail from smaller towns. Just 28 per cent of them belong to the country’s tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Notably, the company saw a substantial 79 per cent increase in female users on its platform in 2023, Harsh Jain, co-founder and CEO of Dream11, said in a post on X.

 

Dream11 is one of three gaming unicorns – companies valued at over $1 billion – in the county, aside from Games24x7 and Mobile Premier League (MPL).

The year saw 1,000 crore fantasy sports teams created on the platform, with as many as 150 crore UPI transactions. The average ticket size was just Rs 63.

This comes at a time when Indian RMG firms are reeling from a 28 per cent blanket tax on online gaming. Skill gaming platforms earlier paid 18 per cent GST on the platform fees, also known as Gross Gaming revenue (GGR). The new rules, which do not make a distinction between games of skill or chance, came into effect from October 1.

A fantasy sport is a game, often played using the Internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete based on the statistical performance of those players in actual games. 

Revenue from the Indian fantasy sports industry grew 31 per cent to reach Rs 6,800 crore in the financial year FY2022. This figure is expected to cross Rs 25,240 crore by FY2027 at a 33 per cent CAGR, according to a recent report by The Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (FIFS) and Deloitte India.

With over 300 fantasy sports platforms (FSPs) and an estimated 180 million users, India is the fastest-growing fantasy sports market in the world. 

The sector, which was valued at Rs 75,000 crore in FY22, is projected to reach 500 million in the next five years.