Nazara eyes Rs 470 Cr revenue in FY21, sees strong growth in esports, early learning business

Buoyed by a strong growth in its esports and early learning businesses in India and the US, Nazara Technologies aims to clock a revenue of Rs 450-470 crore this fiscal year, a top company executive said.

Nazara Technologies CEO Manish Agarwal said the company has been delivering on its stated strategy to grow and dominate in e-sports, virtual sports and early learning verticals.

He added that the company has become India's largest non-real money gaming company with global distribution pipelines.

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"Nazara's initiatives of developing own gaming and esports IPs and distribute them across platforms and the efforts to build capability and capacity to create highly engaging content IPs in last two years are yielding positive results," he said.

Agarwal added that the company had clocked a revenue of Rs 164 crore in 2018-19 , which increased to Rs 264 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2020.

"We had been growing at a robust rate, but during lockdown we saw further acceleration that gives us confidence that we will be able to touch Rs 450-470 crore in the ongoing fiscal," he said.

Agarwal said the company remains focussed on strengthening its dominant leadership position in high growth verticals like esports, cricket simulation mobile game and gamified early learning (edutech).

"We are aggressively expanding coverage and building capacity of our distribution network across new age sports fans in emerging markets and early learner's segment in developed markets, targeting higher revenue generation from demographic segments like digital natives," he said.

This will be done by offering an enhanced interactive experience, whilst also improving cash flows through strong unit economics, he added.

He said the e-sports segment has expanded in the country with growing acceptance for the format as a sporting event. Agarwal added that there has been growth not only in terms of people playing the games but also viewership of esports tournaments.

He noted that the company has seen its network grow from 50 million monthly active users (MAUs) to 100 million MAUs, and expects this to further grow to 130 million by the end of this fiscal.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw lockdowns being imposed across various parts of the world. While most businesses saw their operations being disrupted, sectors like edutech, gaming and content streaming services have seen massive growth, both in usage and new user addition.