French multinational gaming company Gameloft has entered into a partnership deal with Delhi-based social gaming platform WinZO to enable the creator of popular games like Asphalt 9 to tap into a large potential market in the country.

India accounts for 12%, or more than 150 million people, of Gameloft’s download, but it accounts for only 0.6% of the company’s worldwide income, making it a high-potential yet underutilised market.

“With our strong market presence and deep expertise of vernacular markets, WinZO will be able to assist Gameloft,” WinZO CEO Paavan Nanda told.

WinZO has a user base of about 70 million, with more than 60% of the premium-paying customers conducting more than 2.5 billion micro-transactions per month.

“This makes us well-positioned to help big global companies increase their presence in India’s booming vernacular gaming market,” said Nanda. “India is at the forefront of the global gaming scenario and considering that we are at the cusp of this opportunity, we believe we can ably leverage our tech and market capabilities to tap into this boom and make it noticeable on the global grid.”

By using WinZO’s consumers, who are largely based in India's tier-2 to tier-5 markets and consume the games in non-English languages, Gameloft will be able to expand its user base.

Gameloft is a leading casual gaming company with more than 150 popular games that have clocked more than 1.2 downloads globally.

“The perception of India is that, despite our high volume, our users do not pay,” said Nanda. “We can help Gameloft monetise 100X better with our format because they only have to push their product on our platform, which has a massive captive audience.”

As part of the partnership, WinZO will make its platform capabilities, such as streaming, game formats, and the WinZO Store, available to help drive revenue for Asphalt 9.

WinZO has more than 80 games available in 12 different languages and formats. WinZO Store, the platform’s in-app marketplace, enables the selling of in-app currency for the “lowest commissions” when compared to other traditional app stores such as the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

According to Nanda, more than 300 game creators have benefited from WinZO’s unique and creative integration process, which offers a 100 times revenue boost than other revenue streams.

WinZO is a series C funded startup supported by worldwide gaming and entertainment investment groups such as Griffin Gaming Partners, Maker's Fund, Courtside Ventures, Pags Group and Kalaari. It was founded in 2018 by second-timers Nanda and Saumya Singh Rathore.