It is no surprise that India today has a large and rapidly growing gaming market. The gaming industry is witnessing unprecedented growth as the market is estimated to reach USD 3.9 billion by 2025. Online gaming has been gathering a lot of popularity, especially skill games and fantasy sports. The recent trend witnessed is a steadfast increase in skill games across the country due to better accessibility to smartphones and cheap data prices which in turn is helping the sector gain broader reach across the country, thereby spurring its growth. In the Union budget of 2022, we expect the government to lay more focus on this sector.
Here’s what some of the Online Gaming companies’ CEOs had to say about the upcoming Union Budget 2022
Roland Landers, CEO, All India Gaming Federation
“The online gaming industry is growing at an impressive CAGR of 25% – 30% and holds significant potential for overall economic growth, job creation and contribution to the government’s vision of a trillion-dollar digital economy by 2025. To enable the industry in realising its peak growth potential, it is imperative that the GST regime for online gaming industry is kept rational and at par with other technology platforms and services. It is important to highlight that regressive taxation of these emerging sectors may only make the business unsustainable in India. Our recommendation is that the tax authorities should align its policies with internationally accepted principles of taxing the online gaming sector and provide certainty to the industry.”
Talking about Crystallizing the GST levy mechanism, Mr. Landers further added, “The valuation mechanism in levying GST should be clearly outlined to avoid any ambiguities and potential litigations leading to tax demands as the same will adversely impacts the business plans, operations, and entry of new players in the industry.”
Mr. Bhavin Pandya, Co-founder & Co-CEO, Games24x7
“Online gaming is a sunrise sector with immense investment, employment, and revenue potential. The rise of the gaming sector also benefits the growth of other sectors that are the focus of the government including semiconductor, fintech, telecom and IoT.”
“Gaming has the potential to transform the way new India is learning. Gamification is increasingly used to improve education, training, and skill development. Established players in the online gaming sphere have the wherewithal to support a variety of professions from budding entrepreneurs to established technologists and data scientists which will further accelerate growth and make India an exporter of gaming content and IPs.”
“The sector eagerly awaits progressive policy structure from the government as well as fair treatment from the GST council. With proper support, the online gaming sector can give a big impetus to the government’s drive to create a USD 1 trillion digital economy.”
Mr. Ankur Singh, CEO & Founder of Witzeal Technologies Pvt. Ltd
“The Indian gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in India from a new age technology perspective currently. As per the report launched by the EY- AIGF in 2021, online gamers are estimated to grow from 360 million in 2020 to 510 million by 2022. Moreover, the initiative of the Government of India that promotes internet access to citizens at affordable rates and smartphone penetration has been a game-changer for this industry. Now we are expecting that, in realizing its full potential for growth in upcoming years, the government’s focus on this sunrise sector will further help in keeping with the government’s objective of generating unicorn start-ups and act as a catalyst to contribute immensely to the 5 trillion economy target by 2024-25.”
“Besides this, Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of declaring a start-up day (on 16th January) has been an extremely encouraging move further pushing the Digital India initiative by the central government of India. Taking inspiration from this growth in the upcoming budget we expect foresighted policies which would intensively nurture the new age technologies including gaming technologies that are sustainable for the future growth of the economy of the country and to attract international investors to invest in the Indian market in the upcoming years. It will also help in expanding businesses in other countries as well as generation of increased revenue to the exchequer of India.”
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