In the age of social distancing, people are relying on online content more than ever; right from remote working culture to the consumption of content as a mode of entertainment. Where all businesses were witnessing the decreasing curve amid COVID-19 pandemic, gaming sector witnessed a surge.
At the same time, there were a lot of challenges. Earlier in a conversation with Animationxpress, POKKT co-founder and COO Vaibhav Odhekar shared, “During the initial period of the pandemic, there was a downward trend in the ad revenue model as brands had reduced spending on ads due to the lockdown. There was also some uncertainty during the initial days and no clear guidelines were available. The rates have shown a small downward revision, primarily because supply has increased significantly. A lot more content is getting consumed and gaming has become the hottest category from user time spent. We see from April onwards that a lot of brands have started to come back. As the supply chain ecosystem gets fixed the propensity to spend will come back. We are clearly seeing that “DIGITAL” would emerge a winner out of this.”
Earlier according to research done by POKKT, globally mobile games rose up to 39 per cent with most consumers being at home and spending more time on gaming. The rise of mobile gaming resulted in attracting more advertisers as gaming offers an engaging platform. The user time has increased leading to a larger digital spend and the category’s development. Thus like other gaming companies, POKKT has also seen growth in 2020 with high revenue earning. According to POKKT’s recent report on the ‘Impact of COVID on Mobile Gaming,’ the gaming industry has seen a surge in ad request by 14 per cent in April, however, it gradually slowed down to eight per cent in June. Highlights of the report are as follows:
In April
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In April 2020, there has been a 10 per cent increase in monthly active users in online gaming compared to a seven per cent in pre-Covid 19 period
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There has been a nine per cent increase in monthly game downloads which was earlier at five per cent during pre-Covid 19 period
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There has been a surge in Ad request for about 14 per cent in April
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The daily average session time increased to 35-45 mins in April 2020, compared to 30 minutes per session in pre-Covid times
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There have been six daily number of sessions in April compared to three sessions in pre-Covid times
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The time that users spent in gaming was changed from 4 to 8 pm in pre-covid times to 6 to 12 pm in April 2020
In May
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In May daily number of sessions of users decreased to four sessions with daily average session time increased to 35 to 45 mins in May 2020
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There has been a slack in Ad request from 14 per cent in April to 11 per cent in May, with a seven per cent increase in MAU and six per cent in monthly game downloads
In June
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In June daily number of sessions of users decreased to four sessions with daily average session time increased to 35 to 45 mins in June 2020
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There has been a slack of five per cent increase in MAU and four per cent in monthly game downloads and eight per cent in Ad request in June 2020
Odhekar also shared with us his insights on how mobile gaming shaped the year 2020 and how it was for them, “This year POKKT has had it’s best year. We merged with an Asian conglomerate called Anymind group and we are at an all-time high in revenue. Due to the pandemic, digital and gaming have grown by leaps and bounds, and the industry at large is on a steep growth path. We at POKKT are very optimistic about the way our business looks in 2020. Overall it’s been a tough year for everybody and we’ve collectively been through some unexpected situations, but one can hope that 2020 has made us stronger and more efficient personally and as well as a business.”
