India’s Padel Market to Hit $250–300M by 2036 as Player Base Touches 100,000 in Just Three Years
Hudle, India’s leading sports community platform, in partnership with CAA Portas has released the India Padel Report 2026, a comprehensive study of India’s fast-evolving racket-sport ecosystem with a focus on padel and pickleball. The report is built on Hudle’s participation and booking data, which covers over 90% of padel bookings in the country, making it one of the only views of the market constructed from real transactions rather than surveys or projections. With a national base approaching 100,000 padel players and around 500 courts, the report points to a category that is still early but already showing strong signals across participation, infrastructure, pricing and capital.
India already has a deep racket-sport ecosystem. Nearly 35 million players across racket sports form a large conversion pool for newer formats. Within this, the padel market is estimated at USD 25 to 30 million today and is projected to scale nearly 10x to USD 250 to 300 million by 2036. Participation has grown roughly 100x in three years, from 500 to 1,000 players in 2022 to nearly 100,000 in 2025.
The report captures how racket sports are moving beyond trial into repeat habit. Games per padel user player rose 73%, from 5.3 to 9.2 per year, and regular or heavy users now account for 34.5% of the padel base, the highest engagement of any racket sport on Hudle. Sessions average 1.75 hours, the longest on the platform, and 12-month retention sits at 55%. Most sports dilute as they scale. Padel concentrates.
“The most encouraging signal for us is that padel is showing the characteristics of habit, not hype. Players are returning more frequently, spending longer on court and making the sport part of their weekly routines. That’s usually the point where categories start compounding, and we believe India is just getting started ” said Suhail Narain, Co-founder and CEO, Hudle.
Crucially, the audience is not just engaged. It is affluent. 79% of padel players are on iOS, against national penetration of 5 to 8%, and 55% fall in the 27 to 39 age group, a cohort the report notes is roughly a decade younger than the global padel average. Padel, the report argues, is competing less with other racket sports than with the urban wellness wallet. That positioning shows in pricing. Padel is India’s most expensive racket sport, at roughly 3x pickleball and 4x tennis, and the premium is widening rather than softening even as supply scales.
Participation is also widening geographically. Early growth concentrated in Mumbai and Delhi NCR before expanding across Tier 1 cities in 2025 and beginning to emerge in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Demand is already outpacing supply in these clusters. Delhi NCR and Mumbai run at 636 and 505 active players per court against a national average of 305, pointing to acute peak-hour pressure where the category is most established.
Supply is scaling in step. India has around 500 courts today, up from 80 to 100 in 2023, with 48 new venues opening in the first four months of 2026 alone at a 70% annualised growth rate. But the report is clear that court count is not the whole story. Booking remains concentrated among standout clubs, with the top 40 venues accounting for 75% of national padel bookings.
“Our data gives us a front-row view of how India plays. What we’re seeing is that players aren’t just booking courts. They want people to play with, ways to compete and opportunities to improve. That’s why Hudle is evolving beyond booking and building the infrastructure that powers how people experience, connect and grow through sport” added Narain
Capital has moved early. Sport-pedigreed investors are backing the leading platform. Hudle closed a USD 2.5 million Series A in early 2025, led by Sky Impact Capital, with Mahesh Bhupathi and Ajinkya Rahane among the investors.
Female participation remains early, but the momentum is real. The female share of new padel users on Hudle rose from 9% in 2022 to 16% in 2025, against a global benchmark near 40%, making it the single biggest untapped growth lever.
Looking ahead, the report indicates India could cross 1 million padel players by 2036, requiring more than 4,000 courts over the next decade, provided coaching, junior pathways, covered facilities, club formats and female participation continue to improve. As padel and pickleball move from niche urban formats to structured recreational ecosystems, Hudle is positioned as the participation infrastructure powering how India plays, books, competes and builds community across racket sports.
