Reliance chief: ‘India is where China was’ 5 years ago

SAN FRANCISCO — India is rapidly coming online as smartphones penetrate every corner of the country, and that’s going to create a market for mobile games that could, quickly, challenge both the United States and China in terms of downloads and revenue.

Every month, Indian consumers activate more than 25 million new smartphone handsets, according to Reliance Entertainment chief executive officer Amit Khanduja. The CEO, who spoke during a fireside chat at the GamesBeat 2015 conference today, explained that the Indian market could grow to 250 million total smartphones by the end of 2015. As we learned yesterday, however, Indian gamers do not spend a significant amount of money on in-app purchases. But even if Indian gamers are not worth a lot in regards to microtransactions, it’s hard to ignore 250 million people with smartphones — especially since Khanduja believes that the future will lead to finding a way to separate Indians from their rupees.