Time spent gaming in Southeast Asia up 53% after post-pandemic drop

Players in Southeast Asia are engaging more with video games in 2024, with a 53.2% year-on-year increase in the average individual weekly gaming time.

That’s according to a Niko Partners’ new SEA-6 Gamer Behaviour and Market Insights Report shared with GamesIndustry.biz, which explores the current trends in the six key Southeast Asian markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The latter two nations saw the highest year-on-year increase in time spent playing video games. This follows a “major drop” in 2023 across all six markets, attributed to post-pandemic changes in consumer behaviour.

Elsewhere in the report, Niko Partners said female gamers are making more game-related purchases, with 30% of women spending on games compared to 22% of men.

Digital wallets are by far and away the most popular payment method across SEA-6, as more than 75% of players use these to buy games.

“Considering that gamer spending power is also increasing across these markers, we forecast Southeast Asia to be the second-fastest growing region we track for average revenue per paying user (ARPU) through 2028,” said Niko Partners CEO Lisa Hanson.

“To succeed, companies must not treat the region as a monolith but must pay attention to the unique characteristics of each individual market.”

Case in point, the report notes that more than 50% of gamers in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam prefer to play games translated into their local language. This is less pressing in the other three markets, due to “high levels of English proficiency.”