BARC and Nielsen Media jointly rolled the third part of the report on “Crisis Consumption on TV and Smartphones” which says gaming continues to show growth with an increase of 44 per cent in game consumption hour.
COVID-19 led disruption started affecting India hard since mid-March. BARC and Nielsen have put together for the industry to enlighten how it has impacted television consumption and smartphone usage. In the third session of the insights series they have considered at January as the Pre COVID-19 period, and compared it with weeks in from mid-March where the outbreak has been prominent. During this interval gaming has surged growth and have kept engaging people in lockdown. Here are the key findings on gaming:
- During third week of the Covid19 period users have increased by 15 per cent compared to pre COVID19 period.
- Game consumption hours have also increased with 44 per cent in third week compared to pre COVID19 period.
- Users with age group between 15-24 years have increased more than 14 per cent per week and have consumed gaming hours for more than 47 per cent per person per week
- While action games continued to be enjoyed at a wide scale with high engagement rate, social gaming apps have witnessed a gain in popularity during the COVID times
- Average gaming apps accessed by age group 15-24 years is 2.7 in the third week of COVID19 period compared to 2.4 in pre COVID19 period.
- Users using three apps or more have increased from 33 per cent(pre COVID19 period) to 40 per cent by third week of COVID19 period. Whereas user with 1 app have dip down from 42 per cent(pre COVID19 period) to 34 per cent by third week of Covid19 period and with two apps have dip down from 26 per cent (pre COVID19 period) to 25 per cent by third week of COVID19 period.
- Games like Ludo King, PUBG, Free Fire, Candy Crush, Carrom Pool, PUBG Lite, Gold Quiz, Subway Surfers have witnessed the highest user engagement chronologically in third week of COVID19 period. Whereas earlier in pre COVID19 period chronologically it was PUBG, Free Fire, Candy Crush, Dream11, Ludo King, Gold Quiz, PUBG Lite and Carrom Pool
- No drop have been seen so far in creative counts COVID times among 11 out of 19 categories gaming has witnessed 115 per cent of change in creative counts on platforms.
