Vodafone Idea partners with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Nazara Tech to foray into mobile gaming

• Vodafone Idea today announced the Vi Games service, in partnership with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Nazara Technologies.
• The Vi Games service will include over 1,200 games across free and premium tiers.
• Here’s everything you need to know about the new Vi Games service.

Vodafone Idea today announced a partnership with Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Nazara Technologies, launching a new service called Vi Games. This new gaming service will offer over 1,200 games to Vodafone Idea subscribers across free and premium tiers.

As of 1:20 p.m., Vodafone Idea’s share price was down 0.5%, while Nazara Tech’s share price was down by 1.5%, likely owing to market volatilities.

Making the announcement, Vodafone Idea’s chief marketing officer, Avneesh Khosla, said, “We are seeing a significant uptake of gaming consumption in India with more than 95% of gaming enthusiasts using the mobile device to enjoy a wide variety of content.”

“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, stating that the games will be available on the Vi app on Android.

Here's what users will get with Vi Games

The Vi Games service will include both native Android as well HTML5-based games.

Vodafone Idea has divided Vi Games into three categories – Gold, Platinum and Free.

• Gold Games to include the largest library of games across the three categories, with the Gold Pass priced at ₹50 for postpaid users, and ₹56 for prepaid users, with 30-day validity.
• Platinum Games, accessible on a pay-per-download basis, with the Platinum Pass priced at ₹25 for postpaid and ₹26 for prepaid users.
• Free Games to include over 250 games, available for free for all Vodafone Idea subscribers.

Will mobile games help Vodafone Idea stem its subscriber churn?

Vodafone Idea’s partnership with Nazara comes at a time when the telco is struggling to retain subscribers – it has lost over 67 million subscribers since January 2020, and this has reflected in its numbers, too, in terms of revenue, profit and the average revenue per user (ARPU), too.

Particulars	Dec-21	Dec-20
Revenue	₹9,717 crore	₹10,894 crore
Net loss	₹7,231 crore	₹4,532 crore
ARPU	₹115	₹121
Subscribers	24.72 crore	26.98 crore

Source: Company reports

It remains to be seen if the Vi Games value-added service will help Vodafone Idea slow down the subscriber churn.

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