iWorld
MX Player records 4.35 billion minutes of gaming in 2021
Mumbai: Users spent a total of 4.35 billion minutes gaming on MX Player in 2021, the media company reported, with an average watch time of 56 minutes per day.
The online gaming industry has seen an upward trend since 2020 on the back of a mobile first phenomenon driven by the lockdown. MX Player launched games on its platform in February 2020 and hosts over 100 hyper casual games that can be played for free.
MX Player shared that 3.7 billion gameplays were recorded on its platform in the year 2021 with the highest being 16.1 million in a single day. There are more than 8000 game sessions that are completed on the platform every minute.
Genres
Casual, Arcade, Survival, Strategy and Action constituted nearly 71 per cent of the total gameplays on the platform. Among these, “Bubble Blast” was India’s most favourite game with over 336 million gameplays. In “MX City Cricket Battle,” more than 80,000 sixes were hit every hour out of the total number of runs scored by the users. Similarly, more than 57,000 missiles were launched every hour during “Boom Knight” game.
Cities
As per the report, Bihar topped the list in terms of gameplays and engagement and non-metro user engagement was 20 per cent higher than the metro user’s engagement. Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai were among the top 10 cities that contributed to 66 per cent of the gameplays on the platform.
Audience
Nearly 96 per cent playing users were below the age of 35, with 74.3 per cent of them being millennials. And 94 per cent gameplays were from users below the age of 35, with 69.4 per cent of them being millennials. The male to female ratio was 80:20.
iWorld
Meta introduces new AI tools to boost discovery-to-purchase journey
From shoppable Reels to generative video, platforms get smarter at turning attention into sales.
MUMBAI: Meta is turning “scroll and stop” into “scroll, stop, and shop” and it’s using AI to make the whole journey feel almost effortless. The company has announced several new tools and enhancements designed to help brands guide people from discovery to purchase more effectively, while delivering more relevant and personalised experiences across its platforms.
Creators can now add product links more broadly on Instagram Reels, turning their content into shoppable moments. Businesses in 22 countries, including India, will soon be able to share their product catalogues with creators, opening up a new sales channel for brands and fresh monetisation opportunities for creators.
The Creator Marketplace has also been upgraded with enhanced target audience filtering, integrated with Ads Manager. This helps businesses quickly find creators who are a strong match for their goals. Campaigns using Partnership Ads deliver, on average, 19 per cent lower CPAs, 13 per cent higher click-through rates, and 71 per cent higher median brand lift.
Meta is expanding Reels Trending Ads inventory with new content categories including TV & Movies, Travel, Business, Finance & Investments. According to Meta’s analysis of 59 studies, Reels Trending Ads delivered an incremental 6.6 percentage point Ad Recall lift compared to control groups.
AI-Powered Shopping Enhancements
- Product Set Optimisation is now in testing, allowing retail media networks to promote specific products with detailed reporting. Early results show 17 per cent lower median seller cost per purchase.
- Product Showcase is being expanded so marketers can upload one image or video and let Meta’s AI automatically add relevant products as a carousel when it improves performance.
Meta is expanding its generative AI capabilities with:
- UGC-style videos featuring avatars and voiceovers
- Easier voiceover translation and text overlay translation in a single streamlined flow
- New tools to automatically turn product catalogues into dynamic video ads for Reels
Early testing of the Advantage+ creative video generation tool showed a 10 per cent increase in CTR and 8 per cent increase in CVR on average. Campaigns using catalog product video saw 20 per cent more conversions per dollar, while Reels placements with catalog product video delivered 33 per cent higher incremental conversions.
Industry voices welcomed the updates. Vikas Chawla of Social Beat called Partnership Ads a “flywheel” for authentic content that converts. Niti Kumar of Spark Foundry and Sadhvi Dhawan of Blink Digital highlighted the power of Reels Trending Ads for cultural relevance and guaranteed share of voice. Ramasish Bhowmik of Adbuffs noted that Meta’s GenAI tools are giving teams a clear competitive edge.
In a world where attention is fleeting but shopping intent can spark in seconds, Meta is betting that smarter AI will help brands turn discovery into decisions faster than ever. The message is clear: the future of advertising isn’t just about reaching people, it’s about reaching them at exactly the right moment, with exactly the right product.
