Women make up 45 percent of India’s gamers, mostly 18–30 and beyond metros: Lumikai

Women represent 45% of the gamer population, 44% of whom are aged 18-30 and largely based in non-metro regions. While India is a predominantly mobile first country, nearly 30% of gamers said they use gaming PCs and 22% said they have access to a console. Gamers play an average of 2-3 games at any given time, driven by a need to relax or socialize, according to a report by Lumikai.

Social media usage skews more male, with a higher concentration of non-metro users compared to other categories. Users on average spend 10 hours per week on social platforms, driven by a need to interact with their immediate social circle and influencers. While traditional social media apps are prevalent, there are emerging trends across participative social apps, astrology, and dating.

And crucially, there is a willingness to pay. Of the users who use social and community apps, 43 percent say they make payments of some kind on these platforms. Monetization behaviour is driven by subscriptions, online purchases, and virtual gifting and tipping. Users show increasing proclivity to pay for new-age platforms across dating, astrology, and edutainment.

Gaming reflects this monetisation shift even more distinctly. Users who play games, claim to spend over 8 hours per week playing. Casual and midcore mobile games are top preferences, while RMG and Fantasy saw a significant decline in usage compared to last year. Over 30 percent of users claim to have made payments in games, with midcore mobile games leading the way in monetization preference.

Monetization is primarily driven by a need for cosmetic upgrades or in-game power-ups. UPI and wallets drive over 90 percent of gaming transactions. While IAPs are the most frequent form of transaction, nearly 30 percent of users have said they also make purchases through 3rd party platforms or webshop.

This creates a three-tier wallet behaviour. Games command 70 percent share of wallet at ticket sizes above INR 1,000. Video and social drive spends at ticket sizes of INR 200-500 with 30 percent share each. Audio dominates at the sub INR 200 range, with a 30 percent wallet share.

AI is the next major behavioural axis. Daily AI adoption is nearly 3x in metro cities compared to non-metro cities, with significant headroom for further penetration. Over 50 percent of users seem positively inclined or indifferent towards AI-generated content across mediums. The attitude towards AI companions seems to skew negative, with users claiming they would rather talk to an actual human.

Audio sits at a unique intersection of this entire usage pattern. Audio usage is fairly equally split across genders, skews younger, with higher share of metro population compared to other categories. Podcasts outrank music in terms of content preferences, with audio series a growing trend. Nearly 60 percent of users say they pay in audio apps, signalling a growing willingness to pay for audio content across categories.