A new report on Iran’s digital games market shows that the market revenue from this sector in 2017 is estimated to be $269 million. Also, the number of Iranian gamers has reached 28 million showing a 5 million growth from 2015.
The “Digital Games Landscape Report 2017” is based on a national survey conducted by DIREC in Iran from March 2017 to March 2018 with a sample size of 8000 people. According to DIREC, the “Stratified-Multistage Clustering” method is implemented for this survey which comprises metropolitans, cities, and rural areas.
According to this research firm, the definition of a “gamer” is a person who plays digital games at least one hour during a week with at least one of the gaming platforms including mobile devices (tablet and smartphone), video game consoles (handheld and home console) and computers (PC and laptop). While 88% of the gamers in Iran use mobile devices for gaming, 25% are computer gamers and only 18% are console gamers. 35% of the gamers in Iran are female, and adolescents between the age of 12 to 19 years old are the largest age group of gamers in the country.
Based on this research, Iran’s digital games market revenue in 2017 is estimated to be $269 million (with an average exchange rate of 32,000 IRR). This number consists of buying games, game peripherals, and console hardware. Mobile games, console games and computer games each have a share of $67 million, $28.2 million and $20.2 million respectively. The total amount of market size for gaming hardware in Iran is estimated to be $153.6 million. According to this research firm, last year $102 million was spent by Iranians on buying PS4 consoles.
Related:
Iran Game Industry Compared to U.S.
23 Million Gamers in Iran – 37% Women
153 Million Dollars Revenue from Digital Games in Iran
It’s worth to mention that Iran’s digital games market revenue in 2015 was 460 billion Tomans, and in only two years this number has reached 920 billion Tomans ($269M) in 2017.
Based on DIREC’s research, currently, there are over 28 million gamers in Iran, while in 2015 there were 23 million gamers in the country. Also, the time spent on playing video games by Iranians has increased from 79 minutes per day in 2015 to 90 minutes per day in 2017.
The top 5 popular game genres are Puzzle, Platform/Runner, Racing/Driving, Sports and Arcade and the top 5 most popular games are Clash of Clans, Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), Grand Theft Auto (GTA), Counter Strike and FIFA.
What’s interesting is the increase in the number of online gamers in Iran in the recent years, thanks to the improvements in the mobile and landline Internet infrastructure. Currently, 84% of gamers in Iran have Internet access and 48% of them play online games.
Related: 53 Million Mobile Internet Users in Iran Until March 2018
Read the Digital Games Landscape Report 2017 report from this link.
Going by the statistics, I think if there was such a rapid growth of video gamer between 2015 and 2017 then in an additional two more years there could be over 80% growth. Which means there are hopes for greater records than the present for Iran and an invariably growth in revenue.