iWorld
Vodafone Idea launches Vi Games in partnership with Nazara Technologies
Mumbai: Vodafone Idea on Monday announced its foray into mobile gaming with the launch of Vi Games in partnership with Nazara Technologies. This will be the first phase of the company’s entry into the gaming space with subsequent expansion into esports, social gaming, streaming, and cloud gaming.
Vi Games will be a destination within the Vi App and will offer more than 1200+ mobile games across ten genres to Vi customers in HTML5 and Android format. Vi Games has a massive catalogue of titles to choose from out of which 80 per cent are exclusively available on Vi App. While 27 per cent of the portfolio has free games, at an additional fee, prepaid and postpaid customers can access premium and super-premium games.
Nazara Technologies have come on board as a technology partner and will support Vi Games by bringing its experience, competency and diversity of titles in mobile gaming. The company operates in 75 countries and has partnered with 50 telecom operators.
Casual gaming is a Rs 6,000 crore market in India growing at 40 per cent CAGR in the last two years. It is expected to grow by an additional 30 per cent in the coming two years to touch Rs 17,000 crore in value. The majority of gaming consumption in India happens via mobile devices which accounts for 95 per cent of consumption. There are about 400 million casual games in India which is expected to cross 650 million users by 2025. Globally, gaming accounts for 70 per cent of mobile consumer spending.
“We are seeing a significant uptake of gaming consumption in India with more than 95 per cent of gaming enthusiasts using the mobile device to enjoy a wide variety of content,” said Vodafone Idea chief marketing officer Avneesh Khosla. “Deeper penetration of smartphones and 4G availability has led to meteoric growth and adoption of gaming content making it a popular choice for fun and entertainment.”
“While GenZ was driving the first wave of adoption in gaming, recent growth is far more encompassing,” said Khosla. “Women account for 43 per cent of gamers in India and 50 per cent of women gamers are above the age of 34. Gaming attracts a diverse mix of cohorts regardless of age, gender and geography.
“We see gaming as a major focus area of our digital content strategy and we intend to build a comprehensive play encompassing most facets of gaming with the aim of establishing Vi as a preferred destination for both, casual as well as serious gamers,” he added.
“Gaming is not only the future of entertainment in India but already a key mode of entertainment for hundreds of millions of Indians playing games on their mobile phones every day,” said Nazara Technologies founder and group MD Nitish Mittersain. “Nazara is delighted to work with Vi to bring our entire portfolio of gaming content, esports and interactive entertainment to their larger user base.”
The average Indian mobile user consumes an average of 16 Gb of data per month which is 60 per cent higher than the industry average at 9 Gb. Indians now spend one-third of their waking hours on mobile devices and at least three fourth Indians have played one mobile game.
“In the last two decades, we have seen a dramatic change in the macro factors like penetration of mobile devices and cheap data that have helped make India a global giant in gaming,’ noted Mittersain. “Today gaming is reaching across demographics and there is a lot of opportunity to collaborate.”
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
