SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
With a total population of around 1.3 billion, India is a highly attractive and potentially lucrative market for a range of different industries, including sports betting and gaming.
Speaking at the SBC Digital – India on a Vbet-sponsored panel , four affiliate and marketing specialists discussed the potential of India’s market for affiliates, highlighting key jurisdictions and sectors, as well as answering questions from viewers, in a conference mediated by Founder and CEO of Affiliate Insider, Lee-Ann Johnstone.
Mobile and online betting and gaming was particularly emphasised as one of the sectors with the strongest market potential for affiliates.
“I think that the Indian market is one of the fastest growing in the world and it comes down to a technology side and a people side,” said Dimitri Belianin, Chief Marketing Officer of Parimatch International.
“So, a lot of people are getting online, they’re, you know, basically skipping the desktop process, just getting straight into the mobile phones. That’s why you know the biggest part of the market currently is the mobile phones. And at the same time, even though they’re buying these phones, sometimes they’re getting for free, you know that some operators like to do.
“They’re helping people to get access to the internet for free they’re giving away some people. So, a lot of people are getting access to the internet, however, there are few of these free users which is obviously quite low. So, when it comes down to internet usage most of these guys they’re spending their time watching online video social media.”
Rafael Costa, Affiliate Manager at Betwinner, argued that new websites should optimise for mobile usage due to the vast number of people who have easy access to the internet, pointing to how in Brazil over 64% of the population can go online via mobile phone networks.
“There are so many free spots and hot spots that you can connect to to use your mobile phone as a way of entertainment, and not only talk about COVID periods, you know, many things, many people,” he added.
“Many people at all. So they have to spend a lot of their time wondering while they’re watching TV. They’re just you know like scroll the whole world and, you know, press a button on the watch the football for they’re watching or the cricket, or you know whatever we’re just, you know, So that’s, in my opinion, mobile is the new thing.”
Founder and CEO of Catalyst Web Trendz, Vaibhav Jaiswal, agreed that ‘mobile penetration is one thing which is very, very important’ for affiliates looking at entering India’s burgeoning gaming market.
He remarked: “We have more than six 7 billion mobile users with the internet so that the penetration which we’ll talk in terms of at the world level, so we have the maximum penetration by internet users across the globe. So that is the number.
“Apart from that, the smartphone is available at less than I think €5060. And it goes to even €1000 euros so if you go for an effort it is €1500 that costs but you have a smartphone with an Android application which is available for not even €50 or €60.”
Mattias Bergehed, Co-Founder and Managing Director at ENV Media Ltd., pointed to his firm’s use of telegram as being a central part of its strategy in India.
Telegram has played a key role in ENV’s communications with customers in India, including sportsbook betting sites, and has proved extremely useful for maintaining customer contact.
“So during IPL, for example, which would say, incredible event in terms of impressions and numbers I never seen anything like it,” he said.
“And I’ve been doing this in the European markets for many many years so you can’t even compare it with across the screen there the main thing to drive engagement to the same device that the customers are coming back and we do it through telegram.”
Jaiswal agreed that affiliates should not underestimate the significance of telegram in India, stating: I have seen very good numbers coming to telegram because they started on telegram apart from that, they started through Facebook groups also a very close knit community that we created, where a person can join for invite only.
“It was very rightly said by the Parimatch team that people come and they want to know what type of image so this is very much possible for us, telegram channel.”
In addition, the panel highlighted how important it is for affiliates to understand the different geographical markets in India, as well as pointing out the sports sectors with the most potential.
“We reviewed the users in analytics and we targeted specific series, one of those are Bangalore,” said Bergehed.
“Bangalore has over 10 million population and that’s like a small Sweden, and the cost for advertising on local radio channels is not that high. And that is one wanting to build some brand awareness and try to you know improve your direct traffic.”
Belianin added: “I can tell you that Bangalore is amongst the top cities. So basically, I think that it comes down to a few points.
“So one of the points is how many people are living in this city and what is GDP in the city so if there is, like if there are areas like, obviously Silicon Valley in the USA where a lot of, like software developers are leaving, a lot of guys who have a lot of money.
“From my experience, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, these are the top cities in India.”
Finally, cricket and online casinos were highlighted as sectors interested affiliates should focus on.
“Cricket in India, it’s a religion like football is in Brazil, it’s huge,” said Bergehed.
“But we have seen like, especially in our time, the number of casino players, casino users accessing the site and, you know, especially live casinos you can see you know like emerging from this market so yeah, we believe that localisation is the key.”
Taking place from 27 – 28 January, the event includes a star studded roster of speakers and sessions over two days providing insight across igaming, skill games/DFS, casino and more.
To register for your free ticket, click here
