India Macro

The Modi/BJP government holds a stable majority with high policy predictability; a Feb 2026 US trade deal eased tariff friction, though an interventionist stance and a fragile China detente add risk — alongside deepening Quad/US tech alignment.

1. The BJP won West Bengal for the first time in May 2026, further consolidating power. Policy continuity and predictability are high, though centralization is advancing.[13]
2. In Feb 2026 the two sides announced a trade deal cutting US tariffs on Indian goods from a 50% peak to ~18% effective (removing the Russian-oil-linked 25% punitive layer). Residual tariff and currency uncertainty remains an external overhang.[14]
3. While championing Digital India, the government has shown it will use heavy intervention — e.g. banning an entire sector via the 2025 online-gaming law. Regulatory risk is structurally elevated.[5]
4. In Oct 2024 India and China reached a patrolling agreement at Depsang/Demchok along the LAC, ending a 4.5-year standoff, with Modi and Xi meeting at Kazan. Normalization continued through 2025, but structural distrust persists and re-escalation risk remains latent.[17][18]
5. As host of the 2025 Quad Leaders' Summit, India is deepening critical-tech, semiconductor and Indo-Pacific security ties with the US, Japan and Australia — a dual-track of strategic alignment running in parallel with tariff friction.[23]

Coming soon

World-class growth and enormous app demand, but spend lags downloads sharply — a 'high-engagement, low-willingness-to-pay' market. GST 2.0 stimulates consumption while the RMG collapse shifts demand toward F2P/ads.

1. In Jan 2026 the IMF raised India's FY2025-26 GDP growth forecast to ~7.3% (reflecting a stronger Q3), keeping it the fastest-growing major economy, ahead of China. The middle class and consumer market are expanding.[1]
2. India is the world's #1 app-download market (25.5bn+ across both OS in 2025, over 2x the US), yet monetizes at just ~$0.03 per download with IAP revenue around $1bn — far below scale.[9]
3. App-store consumer spend is projected at ~$2.7bn with ~40% YoY revenue growth — among the fastest-growing app economies, driven by low-cost smartphones and expanding mobile-internet reach, yet per-user spend stays far below the US and Japan.[33]
4. Industry estimates put the mobile-gaming market at ~$3.5bn in 2025, reaching ~$12bn by 2034 (~14% CAGR). Headroom for scale is large.[10]
5. GST 2.0 (effective Sep 22, 2025) collapsed the tax structure to two slabs (5%/18%) plus a 40% 'demerit' rate, cutting rates on 375+ items — a consumption tailwind, though online gaming sits in the 40% demerit band.[25]
6. The RMG ban shrank the gaming market ~80% from ~$6bn to ~$1bn (RMG was ~86% of revenue), but residual demand is migrating to F2P, esports and IAP/ads — a structural tailwind for non-stake models.[20][27]

Coming soon

A 1.46bn, median-age-28.8 mobile-first population — the world's youngest large market. ~590M gamers form a vast F2P / family-app TAM, while a multi-polar tech-hub map underpins local dev and hiring.

1. Population 1.46bn with a median age of 28.8 — one of the youngest large markets in the world, with a thick cohort in the family-formation phase.[2]
2. Internet users reached ~1.02bn by Sep 2025, with ~750M smartphones in use and ~24GB monthly data per user — a thoroughly mobile-first structure.[2]
3. The gamer base is ~590M, ~89% on mobile — one of the world's largest F2P audiences, powered by youth and cheap data.[10]
4. The startup base is multi-polar — Bengaluru (most-funded), Hyderabad (T-Hub hosts 1,800+ startups), Pune (~4,000 startups) — across 128,000+ ventures in 670+ districts, giving deep options for local dev and hiring.[19]
5. WinZO is a distribution platform with 250M registered users and 100+ third-party games — a marker of the sheer scale of the mobile-gaming audience; it pivoted to F2P after the RMG ban.[20]

Coming soon

Digital public infrastructure — UPI, Aadhaar, India Stack — provides low-cost identity and instant-payment rails. Sovereign AI and semiconductor localization (Krutrim/ISM/Foxconn) are accelerating.

1. UPI processed 21.63bn transactions in December 2025, +29% YoY — the world's largest real-time payments system, accounting for 80-90% of India's retail digital payments.[3]
2. Aadhaar has issued ~1.44bn IDs; together with India Stack it cut identity-verification cost from $10-20 to ~$0.27 per check, minimizing onboarding/KYC friction.[4]
3. The IndiaAI Mission (~₹10,371 crore over five years) plus a state-backed VC are pushing sovereign AI; AI unicorns such as Sarvam (valued at $1.5bn) are emerging.[11][12]
4. Ola's Krutrim is investing ₹10,000cr in a full-stack sovereign AI cloud (offering H100 time) and plans to ship AI chips (Bodhi/Sarv/Ojas) in 2026 — domesticating GPU and foundation-model capacity.[26]
5. Under the India Semiconductor Mission and a $24bn PLI scheme, Foxconn and peers are scaling iPhone production and a national-security fab is being set up — accelerating hardware/supply-chain localization.[24]

Coming soon

A blanket real-money-gaming ban plus 28% GST, the DPDP rollout, and IT-rule AI-labeling duties strictly define entry terms — while the same Act explicitly promotes esports/F2P. MIXI's stake-based model is effectively off the table.

1. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (Aug 2025) bans all real-money games including games of skill, and bars payment intermediaries and advertising — hitting an industry estimated at ~$23bn.[5][16]
2. The Act is operationalized by the Online Gaming Rules 2026: offering money games or facilitating payments carries up to 3 years' imprisonment + ₹10m fine (repeat: 5 years / ₹20m) and is a cognizable, non-bailable offence. The Supreme Court consolidated all challenges in Sep 2025, so near-term relief is unlikely.[32]
3. Real-money games carry 28% GST on the full deposit value since Oct 2023; combined with retrospective demands and ED raids, the sector saw collapse-level restructuring (e.g. MPL cutting ~60% of its India staff).[6][16]
4. The DPDP Rules 2025 were notified in Nov 2025. Under a phased rollout, consent-manager registration starts ~Nov 2026 and core duties (notice, breach reporting, SDF obligations, verifiable parental consent for children) apply in full from ~May 2027.[7]
5. The Oct 2025 IT-Rules amendment introduces mandatory labeling of AI/synthetic content (visual labels covering ≥10% of screen) and imposes user-declaration/verification duties on SSMIs with 5M+ MAU.[8]
6. While banning RMG, the Act explicitly promotes esports and social/F2P games. Nazara, SuperGaming, Gametion and nCore formed an industry body (IGPDA) and restructured toward non-stake formats.[20][27]

Coming soon

Beyond severe air pollution and extreme heat, AI/data-center power and water demand plus the world's #3 e-waste output are becoming mid-term ESG/infra issues; the 500GW renewables target looks uncertain.

1. Delhi's AQI hit 401 ('severe') in Dec 2025, and Feb 2025 was the hottest February on record — pressuring urban quality of life and health.[15]
2. The 2026 heatwave, intensified by climate change, pushed northern/central India to 45-50°C, with urban heat islands +2-10°C above surroundings — straining the grid and urban life, with knock-on effects for data-center cooling/uptime and device-usage patterns.[31]
3. Data-center capacity is set to grow from ~1.4GW (2024) to ~9GW by 2030 (DC-power market ~$990M in 2025), driven by AI/sovereign-compute demand and DPDP data-localization — but hubs like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram sit in water-stressed zones, surfacing power and water constraints.[28]
4. India is the world's third-largest e-waste generator, at ~1.78m tonnes in FY2023-24 (+151% in six years) — making EPR/waste-rule compliance a mid-term hardware-device/ESG factor.[30]
5. India targets 500GW of renewables by 2030 (currently ~220GW, with attainment uncertain) and net-zero by 2070 — a mid-term factor for AI/data-center power and cooling plans, with calls for green DCs and stronger EIA rules.[15][29]

Coming soon