Bangladesh is the third-largest video gaming market in South Asia and 61st globally in a ranking of 100 countries thanks to robust growth of internet users and smartphone penetration.

The country's video gaming market is worth about $62.22 million or nearly Tk 500 crore a year, according to Newzoo, a leading provider of market intelligence of global games, e-sports, and mobile markets.

In South Asia, Bangladesh lags behind India and Pakistan but is ahead of Sri Lanka. Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan could not grab a place in the top 100.

The report, published for the first time recently, was based on data available up to December last year. Newzoo officials told The Daily Star that they collected information from various sources in respective country as well as global market.

India was ranked 19th with a market size of$521.11 million while Pakistan was placed on 53rd position with its gaming market valuing at $109.05 million. Sri Lanka's market is valued at $34.52 million.

“Our revenue estimates are calculated in a model using a variety of inputs, such as quarterly results from public and private companies, transactional of different application store's data, our consumer research outcomes from 27 coun-

tries, population data, internet penetration rates and economic data," said Cleo Sardelis, marketing and communications manager of Newzoo.

According to the report, there were 26.46 million internet users in Bangladesh in 2016, meaning every consumer spent Tk 188 for playing games in the same year on an average.

However, the total number of internet connections stood at about 66.62 million at the end of last year, according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

Video games developers said although there is no official study on the size of games market in Bangladesh, the new figure seems reliable.

Ashraf Abir, managing director of MCC Ltd, a leading mobile app and games developer, said the games market accounts for 10 percent of the Tk 8,000 crore ICT market in Bangladesh.

"Newzoo is a renowned research firm in this segment and we can rely

on its study," said Abir.

Developers also say the gaming market is dominated by the free games segment, which also helps expand the market's total revenue as the ad market is also linked to it.

Only 5,000 to 10,000 gamers purchase video games, according to SM Mahabub Alam, managing director of MassiveStar Studio Ltd, the country's first commercial video game developer. "Though 90 percent people want free games, it is valuable from advertisement perspective."

Games developers say the gaming market is growing very fast keeping pace with the robust growth of internet users and smartphone penetration.

Last year the country's total internet connections went up by 23.10 percent, while smartphone imports shot up 45.72 percent to 8.2 million units.

Mustafa Jabbar, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, said the gaming market is growing fast in terms of revenue as the number of gamers is increasing every day.

“But we are lagging behind because our game developers don't come forward with unique ideas. Most ideas are copied. This is frustrating,” said Jabbar.

If local developers fail to grab the local market then it will be occupied by international companies, he said.

The government has undertaken a project worth Tk 281.97 crore for games development. The project will be implemented by next year and targets to grab a share of the $ 100 billion global games market.

China secured the top position in the Newzoo ranking with $24.27 billion gaming market and it has 746.94 million internet users. Second-placed US has a gaming market of $23.46 billion with 250.82 million internet users.

Japan ($12.43 billion), Germany ($4.10 billion) and South Korea ($4.05 billion) rounded up the top six markets.