Summary of the hot topics of mobile Internet in Indonesia in the past six months in 2019: Games

The biggest impact should be on game recharge services. The realization of emerging markets is largely hindered by the inconvenience of payment. The entry of giants shows that the payment channels in emerging markets such as Indonesia are not yet fully connected. On the other hand, it also shows that the game industry still has huge room for development. In this regard, Baijing Chuhai makes a brief inventory of the new developments in the Indonesian game industry since 2019 to help developers understand the current market situation.

Adjust previously released a global app trend report, in 2018, Indonesia was ranked as the fastest growing market, followed by Brazil, South Korea and Malaysia. By industry, games are the industry with the highest growth index score in Indonesia. This is mainly due to the country's young population (42% of the population is under 24 years old) and increasingly reasonably priced mobile devices (GSMA data shows that the cost of purchasing a mobile device "has dropped from 4.6% of revenue to 1%).

According to the report “The Power of Mobile Gaming in Indonesia” released by Pokkt, there were 60 million active mobile gamers in Indonesia in 2018, and this number is expected to reach 100 million by 2020. The vast majority of mobile gamers in Indonesia are millennials.

When facing an emerging market, developers are most worried about monetization. Players have not formed the habit of paying, and advertising monetization is not very feasible. However, from the information Baijing Chuhai has learned in the past six months, Indonesian players are willing to invest in certain games.

Before Baijing went overseas, when interviewing Yan Qinshu, the head of Mutong Technology Indonesia, he revealed that the monthly turnover of the game "Mobile Legends: Bang Bang" (Chinese name "Endless Showdown") on iOS and Google Play exceeded 10 million US dollars, and Indonesia was the market that contributed the most.

Another overseas game developer revealed that "starting from 2017-2018, there were a lot more mobile game players, and we were able to get our money back."

In addition, according to previous information, except for Mobile Legends, the monthly turnover of other top products is about several million RMB. The key point here is that the top products have a significant money-making effect! In other words, there is a big gap between the top 1 and the top 2, and the income of the top 10 and the top 1 is not in the same order of magnitude, and so on. If small and medium-sized manufacturers cannot specialize in the Indonesian market, fill the market gap, and adapt in all aspects, it will still be difficult to make money.

As of now, the top products in Indonesia are all medium and heavy games. An industry insider revealed: "Indonesian users like competitive games, especially PVP large-scale multiplayer games. On the one hand, this is because DOTA2 and League of Legends were popular in Indonesia before, and users are used to this kind of competitive gameplay. On the other hand, it is also related to the population structure. More than half of the population in Indonesia is under 30 years old, and this type of game is just right for young people who are full of vigor and vitality."

Regarding another monetization channel, the good news is that according to PubMatic's 2019 Global Digital Advertising Trends Report, digital advertising in Indonesia is expected to grow rapidly in 2019. It is estimated that digital advertising spending in Indonesia will reach US$2.6 billion in 2019 (China and the United States both exceed US$10 billion), an increase of 26% over last year, the highest growth rate in digital advertising in the world. The growth rate of mobile advertising is tied with Russia, which is also the highest in the world, with a growth rate of 34%, and total spending is expected to reach US$1.5 billion, following closely behind France, South Korea and Italy. The report shows that displaying promotions or activities through applications is already an important trend in digital advertising in the country.

The most iconic event in e-sports was in November 2018, when the Philippines officially announced that e-sports would be included as an official medal event for the first time in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games (SEA) in the Philippines, and Moonton Technology's "Mobile Legends: Bang Bang", as a national-level mobile game in Southeast Asia, would become the first confirmed event.

According to Niko Partners, more than 60% of Southeast Asian players prefer e-sports games. Among e-sports players, competitive game users alone account for 42% of the Southeast Asian player group.

Ashadi Ang, chairman of Indonesian game payment portal UniPin, admitted, "We have been engaged in game recharges for many years, and recently we have increasingly felt the warming of the Southeast Asian e-sports market and the huge potential of Chinese games in Southeast Asia." UniPin also crosses borders to host third-party e-sports events, hoping to connect game manufacturers and players and become a traffic distribution center.

Simply put, UniPin started out as a game recharge company, with its channels covering almost all channels including convenience stores, credit cards, and various e-wallets. It bypassed the revenue sharing of Google and Apple, and accumulated a large amount of user data. It then hosted e-sports events based on this data, which in turn strengthened user stickiness, forming a traffic closed loop that can continue to expand.

In terms of payment platforms, GoPay also sponsored Indonesia's largest e-sports team RRQ in August this year, and sponsored various e-sports competitions. Overseas game live broadcast platforms are also actively deploying in the e-sports field, including Chushou's overseas live broadcast platform Game.ly, Huya Nimo TV, etc. In Indonesia, the partners of e-sports events have also expanded from the original IT industry to retail brands such as beverages.

Overall, the ARPU value of Indonesian gamers is not high, but the economic growth rate and the advancement of the gaming ecosystem through payment, live streaming and other platforms are all helping the Indonesian gaming market take off.

From: White Whale Out to Sea