VMPL
New Delhi [India], March 27: A yr in the past, microdramas barely registered as a class in India. Today they are a $300 million market.
That shift is enjoying out throughout each main format. A technology of mobile-first customers is bypassing established media for codecs which can be interactive, personalised, and constructed for a way they really use their telephones. The Lumikai State of India Interactive Media 2025 report maps the complete image.
Now in its fifth version, the report is the longest-running annual evaluation of India’s interactive media financial system. This yr’s findings: a $13.8 billion market increasing at 17% year-on-year throughout video, social media, video games, animation/VFX, and audio, pushed by 877 million smartphone customers.
‘Micro-dramas crossed $300 million of their first yr. That tells you one thing elementary about the place Indian media is heading – towards codecs which can be mobile- native, interactive, and geared for a brand new technology of media shoppers. The paradigm shift from search to social to video is nicely understood. The subsequent shift with interactive media and AI is now underway in India.’ Salone Sehgal, Founder and Managing Partner, Lumikai
‘The RMG ban did not eradicate demand. Our analysis with VTION exhibits one in three former gamers migrated to offshore betting platforms – spending as much as 10,000 a month with zero oversight, zero tax contribution, and 0 shopper safety. Meanwhile, the remainder of the market is wholesome: video gaming grew 17% and is on monitor to cross $3 billion by 2030. The demand is actual. The query is whether or not regulation channels it productively.’ Aditya Deshpande, Principal, Lumikai
Five Findings Shaping India’s Interactive Ecosystem
1. Micro-dramas are the brand new OTT
Micro-drama platforms generated $300 million of their first yr and are projected to achieve $4.5 billion by 2030, with 91% progress anticipated in 2026.
One-minute serialised dramas constructed for vertical cellular screens generated extra income of their first yr of significant scalethan most OTT platforms managed of their first three, with 450Mn downloads and 100Mn MAUs. India’s OTT video market at the moment stands at $4.9Bn. Micro-dramas are projected to strategy that scale by 2030.
Micro-dramas are mobile-native, production-light, and optimised for the eye patterns of India’s 877Mn smartphone customers. For Indian audiences steeped in serialized storytelling, micro-dramas characterize a mobile-native evolution of the TV drama exhibits.
2. India’s free to play gaming market grew 17% tocross $1.5Bn
India’s free-to-play gaming market grew 17% year-on-year to $1.5 billion in CY25, with ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User) at $18, and is projected to achieve $3.2 billion by 2030.
~555 million Indians performed cellular video games in 2025. One infour of them paid, producing $1.5 billion in income. That’s a market on monitor to cross $3.2billion by 2030.
Despite a difficult regulatory yr, India’s revenue-to-download combine exhibits avid gamers generate 4.5x extra income than non-gamers, corresponding to world benchmarks. In-app purchases (IAP) are the fastest-growing income stream at 19% CAGR, with in-app promoting following at 13%. As real-money gaming is faraway from the income combine, IAP income turns into a major lever of monetisation.
3. One in three RMG customers migrated to offshoreplatforms
One in three real-money gaming customers has shifted tooffshore platforms, spending as much as 10,000 monthly in an unregulated, zero-tax atmosphere.
India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, handed in August 2025, banned real- cash gaming.Lumikai’s major analysis along side VTION, the patron insights platform, estimates that roughly one in three erstwhile RMG gamers migrated to offshore betting platforms, spending as much as 10,000 monthly with no regulatory oversight, no shopper grievance mechanisms, and no tax contribution to the Indian exchequer.
A measurable rise in VPN-enabled browser utilization amongst RMG customers corroborates the shift. Banning didn’t eradicate demand, however it merely redirected it. The remaining majority redistributed time towards microdramas, audio platforms, and social leisure, instantly accelerating progress in these classes.
4. India’s animation business constructed Hollywood’sblockbusters. Now it is constructing its personal.
India’s $1.6 billion AVFX business, which derives 80% of its income from worldwide studios, is more and more investing in authentic IP as AI reduces manufacturing timelines by 30-50%.
Indian animation titles like Mahavatar Narsimha ($40M world field workplace collections) and The Legend of Hanuman (~9.4M OTT views), together with the a lot awaited Baahubali: Eternal War, sign a rising viewers urge for food for made-in-India animated IP.
Four in 5 rupees earned by India’s $1.6bn animation and VFX business serve international productions. Increasingly, for the primary time, home movies like RRR, Brahmastra, Pathaan, and Tiger 3 present a surging home market as Indian filmmakers allocate 15 to 30 p.c of manufacturing budgets to VFX. AI is now compressing manufacturing timelines by 30 to 50 p.c, shifting India from a cost-arbitrage workforce to a speed-led, IP-capable competitor.
5. The area of interest is the brand new mass market i.e. astro and micro studying apps out monetise social media
Astro-devotional and micro studying platforms lead with$8.4 and $5.5 annual ARPU (Average Revenue PerUser) respectively regardless of smaller consumer bases, displaying that intent-led classes monetise higher than scale-driven platforms.
Astrology and devotional platforms like AstroDiscuss, SriMandir, and AstroYogi generate practically 40% greater annual ARPU than social media, highlighting considerably stronger monetisation per consumer. High-trust, intent-driven verticals convert and retain paying customers at charges that horizontal platforms can’t match.
Interactive and micro studying platforms like Duolingo, Seekho AI, Master AI by Eloelo and Supernova AI present the identical sample. They are rising as a quick rising acquisition channel with 290M cumulative downloads in 2025 alone. The subsequent technology of class winners in India might be constructed vertically, not horizontally. Interest and intent in a selected area beats broad attain with shallow monetisation constructed for behavior and tedium.
Report Access and Methodology
The full 36-page Lumikai State of India Interactive Media 2025 report is out there at lumikai.com/report-2025. The report covers calendar yr 2025 and is predicated on secondary analysis together with information from third-party analytics platforms, third-party app information suppliers, annual firm filings, and publicly out there metrics. The report additionally incorporates major analysis together with a panel survey of 3K+ customers, cellular utilization information and behavioural insights from shopper intelligence platform VTION, and direct interviews with founders, operators, and traders throughout all 5 interactive media classes.
About Lumikai
Lumikai, combining the Latin phrase for ‘mild’ with the Japanese phrase for ‘tribe’ is India’s pioneering interactive media, digital platforms, and video games VC. The fund backs early-stage founders constructing interactive media and digital platforms (streaming, social leisure, audio, micro-dramas), driving innovation in video games, creating cutting-edge know-how (AR/VR, spatial computing, AI), and harnessing interactive mechanics to remodel shopper experiences in training and talent growth.
The agency has backed class main firms together with EloElo and Story TV (India’s #1 social leisure and quick drama platform) Supernova (Top 5 instructional apps inIndia), AutoVRse (India’s fastest-growing enterprise VR firm), Bombay Play (constructing informal video games for the worldwide market) amongst many others.
A seed stage investor, it additionally runs Lumikai Pixels, its pre-seed program for founders of their – 1 to 10 journey of constructing the subsequent technology of interactive platforms. For extra info, go to https://www.lumikai.com/.
(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press launch has been offered by VMPL. ANI is not going to be accountable in any means for the content material of the identical.)