Indonesia is the largest economy in Southeast Asia, with a population of 274 million, and the average age of the population is only 27 years old. It is a vibrant emerging market, ranking 16th in the global economy and first in Southeast Asia. Users have a high degree of acceptance of the Internet. Indonesia’s Internet ecology is gradually maturing. At present, Indonesian mobile Internet users account for 52.9% of the total population. Indonesian mobile Internet users are climbing at a double-digit growth rate, which has now surpassed Japan. 

Mobile Gaming Market Status quo

In recent years, with the gradual change of Indonesian residents’ entertainment concept, the number of mobile game players has increased greatly, and a number of large-scale e-sports have been held in succession, the e-sports industry has gradually been accepted by the mainstream society, and the development trend of Indonesia’s mobile e-sports market has also continued to improve, which may lead the development direction of the entire Indonesian e-sports market in the future.

The Indonesian game market performed very well mainly due to the following factors.

• Steady economic growth: Indonesia has the fourth largest population in the world, with an annual GDP per capita growth rate of around 6%.
• Young demographic dividend: Over 60% of Indonesia’s population is under 30 years old with rising income and spending capability.
• High smartphone penetration: With the popularity of smartphones such as Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO in Indonesia, the penetration rate of smartphones in Indonesia reaches as high as 60%.

Indonesia is now the third largest smartphone market in the Asia Pacific region (after China and India), and the availability and consumer purchasing power of low-end smartphones in the market are increasing. A survey conducted by APUS Group on more than 30 million Indonesian users shows that Indonesia’s special archipelagic geographical conditions make mobile Internet communication more necessary than other regions. 

The penetration rate of mobile Internet continues to increase. Mobile games are a tool to kill time for Indonesian mobile users, who spend more time on mobile games than any other type of application on average every day. This may be because Indonesia is a “young” country. According to the data, Indonesians under the age of 24 account for 42% of the total population of Indonesia. In the daytime, Indonesian game users mainly play games at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., which means that Indonesian game users like to play games on their way home or after dinner.

Games and Developers in Indonesia

As we mentioned above, Indonesia has a large number of game players. Casino games are popular among Indonesian game users, accounting for about 12.0% of the market. Game developers from Chinese Mainland, the United States, Indonesia and other countries are major players in the Indonesian mobile game market. The Higgs Domino Island published by Boke is a good example. In August 2020, Higgs Domino Island ranked among the top 20 on the Indonesian Google Play download list and the top 3 on the revenue list.

Action game, covering Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Garena Free Fire: Heroes Arise, PUBG Mobile, etc, it has had a deep influence in Indonesia, making it popular with the most people in Indonesia. In addition, people are willing to spend money in these games. Indonesian users also tend to play sandbox games, an increase of 65%. Mobile game Roblox, Minecraft Trial, and Craftsman are recognized by the highest number of users among all games. 

It is worth noting that Roblox also gains the largest user base with the fastest-growing number of games in the entire category in Indonesia. What’s more, most mobile games can be found in Redfinger cloud phone. As a virtual Android system, “Redfinger” allows you to have another Android phone on one device. Running on an ECS, “Redfinger” hardly consumes your own device’s data, storage and battery power. With Redfinger, you can freely run your game on the cloud 24 * 7. In addition, with a red finger account, you can manage as many cloud phones as possible to meet your multitasking needs.

Indonesian government departments support game developers. However, Indonesian developers still lag behind other countries in terms of income. Founded in 2009, Agate has grown from a small developer to the largest game developer in Indonesia. The masterpiece is Valthirian Arc: Hero School Story, released on Steam in 2018. So far, 250 games have been released. In addition to major developers, well-known developers such as Mojiken Studio, Toge Productions, TouchTen Games and Lentera Studio cannot be ignored.

Payments in Indonesia

The penetration rate of credit cards in Indonesia is less than 10%. Direct operator bills, electronic wallets and online banking are the main payment channels for game players.

• Direct Carrier Billing

Telkomsel is the largest telecoms operator in Indonesia with a market share of around 56%, along with Indosat and Excelcomind. As such, the 3 largest operators are able to cover around 98% of mobile users.

• E-wallet Payments

In Indonesia, it is common for users to use e-wallet to pay, such as DANA, GOPAY, OVO, LinkAja and DOKU. Founded by Ant Financial and Emtek in 2017, DANA is one of the most trusted and reliable digital wallets for Indonesian users.

OVO was founded in August 2016 and has now obtained the electronic payment license. OVO used to rank first in the financial download list on both the Apple Store and Google Play.

GO-PAY is an e-wallet launched by Indonesian online car hailing program Go Jek not long ago. It allows users to store a certain amount of money on the application for future rides or other products. Go Pay can be used to pay for various services provided on the Go Jek platform, such as car hailing, meal ordering, home massage appointment, etc. GO-PAY also has a unique function that allows users to transfer money and receive refunds.

DOKU, the first electronic payment company in Indonesia, was established in 2007 and obtained the electronic payment license issued by the government at the end of 2012. DOKU provides businesses with four service methods: payment link, electronic invoice, Web and mobile applications, and supports multiple payment methods such as credit card and electronic wallet. It is directly related to the ten major banks in Indonesia, so its security is very high.

In addition to the above e-wallet payment, online banking transfer, ATM transfer and convenience store payment are also commonly used payment tools for local people.

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