Flipkart has invested funds into Mech Mocha in order to help the company grow in India
E-commerce giant Flipkart has announced provided funding to Mech Mocha, a mobile gaming company based in India. Flipkart has taken a strong interest in the mobile space, particularly where commerce is involved, but is beginning to show stronger support for mobile games. In November of last year, Flipkart invested in MadRat Games and the company continues to show favor for innovative mobile game developers, such as Mech Mocha.
Funding will help Mech Mocha develop new mobile games
The funding from Flipkart will allow Mech Mocha to expand its development team. The funding will also allow Mech Mocha to develop new mobile games that will be released in the Indian market. The firm also intends to support mobile commerce, to some degree, implementing a back-end platform which will support social media and mobile payment solutions. Mech Mocha has found a significant degree of success in India’s mobile gaming space, which is beginning to grow quickly as more consumers gain access to smartphones and the mobile Internet.
Mobile gaming is growing quickly in India
According to Mech Mocha, more than 400,000 people have installed its games in India. The Indian online gaming industry, which includes the mobile sector, is expected to reach $3 billion in value by 2018, growing from its current value of $1 billion. Developers from other countries are beginning to show interest in the Indian market due to accelerating smartphone penetration. As more consumers gain access to mobile devices, they are looking for new and convenient forms of entertainment. As such, they are turning to mobile games.
More developers are beginning to focus on the mobile space
Mobile games have vast potential in terms of revenue generation and the overall game industry is becoming more involved in the mobile space as a result. Some companies that have been devoted to developing games for traditional consoles have begun to focus exclusively on producing mobile games. These companies see mobile gaming as a very valuable opportunity that cannot be passed up, especially in thriving markets like India.
The marketplace in India is starting to experience the same level of “app fatigue” being seen elsewhere.
A recent study conducted by Forrester Research in India has shown that consumers will be spending a growing amount of time on their devices, but will be using fewer apps, with a preference for mobile gaming over other types of applications.
The app fatigue that is being seen in other regions of the world is clearly setting in within this country.
This trend has been especially notable in developed markets such as the United States, and Forrester Research stated that it will not take over as quickly in India for a while. The report was entitled “Predictions 2015: Most Brands Will Under-invest In Mobile”. It showed that while device users in India may be showing signs of app fatigue, their love of mobile gaming remained strong.
The report showed that mobile gaming will be, to some extent be immune to the upcoming wave of app fatigue.
The report indicated that smartphone apps are going to start to become less popular among Indian mobile device users, but at the same time, mobile games will start to increase in popularity, to a certain degree. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the average smartphone owner will use an average of 24 apps every month, but 80 percent of their time will be spent on only five of those, as a result of app fatigue.
According to iVoice Ventures’s Venky Vaiyapuri, though many smartphone users are downloading applications, many of those apps will go unused. There are also many applications that remain entertaining only when they are new and that become boring over time. Vaiyapuri explained that there are simply too many apps and this is not appealing to consumers.
He used Angry Birds as an example. While many people download that mobile gaming application, not many will use it or will continue to use it over time. He stated that “We will soon follow the US and UK markets and lose interest in downloading apps.” A Vodafone India spokesperson added that India hasn’t yet reached the level and energy of monetization seen in developed markets.
