Paavan Nanda – Co-founder, WINZO Games

Besides videos what keeps users hooked to smartphones most of the time is none other than gaming. The ever-increasing trend has enveloped in such a way that the time spent on watching videos or playing games on smartphones is more than the time spent on prime time of national television channels. Betting on this opportunity is homegrown WINZO Games which aims to be a dominant player in the market by offering you a diverse gaming experience. WINZO, a Kalaari-backed Series A venture, can be seen as the ‘Netflix of Gaming’ having an assortment of games available on a single platform. WINZO currently hosts 25+ games and is the only platform that is present in eight languages. With 5 million+ install base in just one year, it is one of the fastest growing players in the industry. Paavan Nanda, Co-founder, WINZO Games, shares his insights about mobile gaming in India and how WINZO is cashing in on the trend, in a tête-à-tête with Ramesh Kumar Raja. Excerpts:

Mobile games are giving a new dimension to the app economy, thanks to smartphone penetration. What is the size of the gaming industry in the world and where is India placed in reaping the dividend of gaming apps? In the past couple of years gaming industry has been an exciting market and area of development in the startup ecosystem. With growing smartphone penetration and cheaper data rates, this wave of engagement is set to receive new heights. The number of gamers has grown to 2.3 billion globally, and according to a report by Nasscom, India’s mobile gaming market is expected to reach 628 million users and worth $1.1 billion by 2020. E-sports as a category in gaming industry is a fairly new concept in India, and we believe that the market is slated to grow further.

Most of the top grossing games in India have been developed by foreign publishers,

mostly from the US, Japan and China, and India is nowhere on the list. Why it is so? Considering its market value, is India ready to make it big in the online mobile gaming? Drawing an inference from the games that are in vogue and top grossers in terms of the number of subscribers, there might be a dearth of developers from India. However, this is primarily because mobile gaming is still in a nascent stage in India and will grow in magnitude attracting economies to scale and more developers as the subscriber / user base increases.

India has a huge population base, which is young and has access to mobile telephony with affordable data charges; these factors shall provide the requisite impetus towards greater penetration in the online mobile gaming.

What is the USP of WINZO Games that has given it an edge above its competitors? How technologically advanced you are in the gaming space? WINZO has been the pioneer in the E-sports casual gaming category in India. WINZO is currently offered in 8 languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Gujarati and Marathi. We understand the behaviour of the users in this segment very well. We have spent a lot of time working closely with this target group building a product for them. For example, average time spent by paid players on the platform is 60 mins, with an average overall time spent close to 30 mins. This is a testament of our

continuous effort to build a great product. We are the first player who took this stance and started solving for this audience in this fashion. We are the fastest growing E-sports platform, witnessing some great growth.

How many mobile games you have developed till date? Please tell us some popular names that received good reviews? We have developed 11 games in-house out of 30 games, which we offer on the platform.

All our games have received great responses, some of them are; Multiplayer Carrom, Cricket, Fruit Samurai, Tank Fight, Arena Fighters, Knife Up etc. to name a few We have reached an install base of 5 million+ in just one year; we are one of the fastest growing players in the industry. We aim to double our install base by the end of this year, and add more engaging content and games on the platform. We are building a social gaming platform for the vernacular audience and we look forward to asserting our position as the largest brand for gaming and entertainment in India.

How is WINZO consolidating its position in the online gaming industry? WINZO Games aims to become India’s biggest vernacular e-sports gaming platform, primarily looking to cater Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets in India. Our objective is to build a stable monetization model for the casual gaming genre, given the global in-app purchase is about 2% vis-a-vis that for India, at less than 1%, because of which the ad revenue is very low for this audience. E-sports to casual game is the best way to monetize the next 400 million casual gamers. WINZO is now committed to expand our user base in India and create a much-localized experience for the audience that is coming on the digital grid for the first time. The company is also looking at a possible expansion in SAARC nations, South-east Asian, and African countries by early 2020. The app is already present in 8 languages and there is an immediate plan to add eight more languages in the app including Punjabi, Malayalam, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Rajasthani, and Haryanvi.

What were the initial challenges and how did you overcome them? We foresee more opportunities than challenges in the mobile gaming industry in India today. India is steadily moving towards value driven consumption, with increased focus on local development. Earlier the challenges were restricted to limited local content and game development and stable monetization model; however, with WINZO we are solving the issues and providing an all-in-one entertainment app, localized for Indian users. With 5 million+ install base, WINZO aims to be the household entertainment brand by 2020. What are your strategy and expansion plans? We clocked 5million + user base in less than a year, this speaks a lot about our aggressive plans, and to capture the next 400 million users who are going to join the smartphone bandwagon by 2020. At WINZO, we are focusing on a very unorthodox way to capture the interest of the users. Being a vernacular gaming platform focusing on Tier 2/ 3 market, our strategies include focusing on building community of local influencers to derive our installs and engagement.

With data rates in India cheapest across the globe and affordable smartphone market growing, India is poised to witness a large chunk of its population shift towards smartphones. All these people are expected to consume the content. Video and Gaming are the two biggest entertainment channels for the smartphone users. We are currently committed to expand our user base in India and create a much-localized experience for the audience that is coming on the digital grid for the first time. We are also looking at a possible expansion in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Middle Eastern countries and African countries.

“We foresee more opportunities than challenges in the mobile gaming industry in India today. India is steadily moving towards value driven consumption, with increased focus on local development. Earlier the challenges were restricted to limited local content and game development and stable monetization model; however, with WINZO we are solving the issues and providing an all-in-one entertainment app, localized for Indian users”

Is there any possibility of raising funds in the near future to make it large? Our goal is to reach every household by 2020, and become the one-stop shop for gaming and entertainment, which is definitely going to be very challenging and at the same time exciting. It would need a reasonable amount of capital to be infused and require the best talent resource to be attracted. Therefore, we would be exploring possible opportunities to raise fund to make a bigger bang for the buck. ■