IT is estimated that the gaming industry will gain a 12 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) by2025, according to the most recent forecasts.
The tremendous growth of multifunctional gaming platforms is one of the main reasons the industry boasts increasing popularity of casino games in the African region. Africa has the highest rate of youth growth worldwide. For instance, it is expected that by 2050 Africa’s youth population, especially those aged below 24 years, will see an increase of about 50 percent.
Practically, Africa will claim the highest number of youths globally. The young generation in the continent is very crucial when it comes to gaming – specifically mobile gaming. The betting industry targets mainly the young, with bookmakers such as Betway recording high youth enrolment.
Currently, Africa studios are developing new local gaming ideas, launch-able on Netflix. Several locally-produced contents have been nominated for global awards like the Oscars. An example is the 2020 Annecy Festival that focuses on Africa’s animations. In the same breath, African governments seek to adopt gaming solutions geared towards improving the education sector. Such improvements will boost gaming popularity in the region.
With the recent lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic, streaming as a form of entertainment has made online gaming more popular. The global constellation of the matches has left fans with only re-runs of the filmed games. Consequently, betting, which accounts significantly for the industry’s revenue, has plummeted to almost zero.
As the traditional gambling industry faces huge losses, online gambling has registered overwhelming gambling activities since the beginning of national lockdown on March 27, 2020.
Main trends in the market
- Mobile gaming brings home about half of the annual revenue of the gambling industry. Africa has over 200 million youths. This figure has a high chance of doubling in the next decade, especially after Betway and other top brands continue to include more and more gaming options in their platforms.
- Mobile gaming is gaining popularity in the African region. More than 290 million North African populations use mobile phones. The mobile industry in this part pockets a profit of about $90 billion every year.
- The potential to reap huge profits in the gambling industry is one of the major motivations for mobile gaming.
- But, on the other hand, mobile operators’ boost in the network rollouts in sub-Saharan Africa has been key in reducing the coverage gap. For instance, infrastructure deployment in 2017 pushed 3G coverage from 63 percent to 70 percent in 2018, increasing the network access to over 80 million people. However, 3.3 billion people occupy areas covered by the network broadband but do not utilise mobile internet. Consequently, mobile companies operating in this region may experience losses when it comes to mobile gaming investment.
Piracy, Law & Regulation Issues, as well as Frauds at the Time of Gaming Transactions, will have an impact on the Market Growth
- A significant number of African countries have laws and regulations that govern gambling. Take, for example. South Africa has well-defined gaming laws. It is the pioneer in creating gambling regulations in Africa. Additionally, casino games are popular in the country
- Today, there are some attempts to add more restrictions to the existing gambling regulations. But on the other hand, some legislators are advocating for less restrictive measures.
Competitive landscape
The gaming market is gaining popularity each day. The increasing number of gaming applications in the market across the continent is a catalyst for a huge gaming market in the next few years. Sony launched new PlayStation studios in May 2020, a class of the PS5 games. The company intends to use the PlayStation studios for its first-party to make the games accessible to the players.