Angonix, Angola’s largest Internet Exchange Point (IXP), today welcomed i3D.net as its first remote peering customer. i3D.net is a managed hosting provider specialising in online gaming that hosts tens of millions of players for game publishers on the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation networks. i3D.net joins 17 other companies at Angonix, Africa’s third largest IXP.
According to Darwin Da Costa, project manager at Angonix: “With the Remote Peering services from Angola Cables, online gamers in Angola will enjoy an improved gaming experience with a much reduced latency. It is the first phase as we look forward to eventually having i3D.net establish a local infrastructure in the country.”
This year, global revenues in the games market – including Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games that support thousands of players at a time playing over the Internet – will total $109 billion, a growth of 56% over the past five years. Accounting for the majority of the online gaming market, MMOs are expected to have a value of $27 Billion by 2025.
Whether on smartphones, PCs or consoles, the growth of the global online gaming market is expected to consistently be above 10% until 2023 with the availability of better gaming infrastructure as one of the primary drivers propelling the growth prospects of this market.
i3D.net CEO Stijn Koster adds, “i3D.net provides services to a variety of online video gaming publishers, aggregating a large number of games that can be played on our infrastructure. We are always working to bring content as close to the end user as technically possible and welcome the opportunity to partner with Angola Cables and the Angonix Internet Exchange Point. i3D.net continues to build a stronger presence in Africa as one of the few truly global providers with extensive local presence throughout the African continent.”
With year-on-year revenue growth of more than 25%, AMEA (Asia, Middle East and Africa) is a fast-growing region for online gaming. With more than 336 million gamers and an online population of over 585 million, it will see revenues of about USD 4.0 billion this year. Only three African countries are in the top-60 countries for online gaming revenues, but as infrastructures continue to improve, these rankings are expected to improve. Currently, South Africa is ranked number one on the continent (55th globally) with revenues of $120 million this year, followed by Algeria (ranked 57th globally) with revenues of $103 million and Morocco (ranked 59th globally) and revenues of $84 million in 2017.
Latin America will be the second fastest growing region in 2017, with a year-on year growth rate of +13.9%. The region’s 205.7 million gamers will spend a total of $4.4 billion this year, making up 4.1% of global revenues. The mobile segment is the largest revenue shareholder, up 34.6% year on year. This impressive growth is set to continue as revenues for smartphones and tablets increase toward 2020, driven by rapid growth of the mobile segment and increasing internet penetration. Over 80% of all LATAM gaming revenues are generated by the top five countries in the region, with Mexico taking the first spot with $1.4 billion in revenue and Brazil in second place with revenues of $1.3 billion.
