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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

May - 2012 - issue > In Conversation

Social Gaming The next frontier in Internet

D Richard de Silva
Founder & CEO-Mango Games
Thursday, May 3, 2012
D Richard de Silva
According to Inside Social Games, India will be the second largest geography for Facebook by the end of 2012 with nearly 70 million Facebook users and Indonesia will be third with more than 60 million Faceboook users. Overall Internet penetration in India is expected to surge to 237 million users by 2015, surpassing the US and second only to China, according to consulting firm BCG. The social games industry has developed into a multi-billion dollar business globally on Facebook and smartphone platforms. India is the fastest growing geography for new Facebook users. 2010 founded Mango Games Pvt Ltd. develops and publishes viral and engaging casual games for Facebook and mobile platforms. The company is the leading independent social games company based in India, with a particular focus on the South Asian market which includes more than 1.5 billion people, 100 million Internet users and 1billion mobile handsets. D. Richard de Silva, Founder & CEO of Mango Games, talks about the trends in social gaming and the opportunities in Indian market and beyond.

Changing Internet Space

The internet space in India has been on an upsurge 2005, especially in the last 18 months. With India attributing to 20 percent of the traffic for Internet players like Facebook, Zynga and more, it has emerged as a significant driver of page views and unique visitors. The most recent development is in social media. Facebook is now seeing most of its growth coming from India and Indonesia. The U.S. market is saturated, and with India now reaching to 50 million users, it has become the second biggest market for Facebook.

Social Gaming & Trends

India has been showing a tremendous appetite for social gaming. The gaming scene is currently dominated by urban young male demographic as of now but we are slowly seeing a steady rise in female players as well. With the rising penetration of Internet in tier II & III cities, one can see this number growing up tremendously. Geography wise, India is very much at the beginning of this cycle and majority of the users are from Mumbai, Delhi and to some extent Bangalore. Another surprising fact is that the number of users from Pakistan is very high, in fact Lahore and Karachi are showing equal traction as Delhi and Mumbai.


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