New Delhi India’s app ecosystem continued its growth trajectory in the first quarter of 2022, driven primarily by mobile payments, shopping and gaming apps, according to a report by Singapore-based data.ai (formerly App Annie).
Besides, mobile users in India spent 20% more time per day on apps in the March quarter than in the previous year, and were among the top seven countries with an average of 4.8 hours of daily use.
While Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat were among the top five downloaded apps in India, online shopping apps Meesho and Shopee topped the list on the back of the expansion of India’s online payment and shopping economy. “The dominance of blockbuster apps has been broken by mobile commerce products, Meesho and Shopee. India has a particularly vibrant payment and shopping sector,” said Gabriel Becker, Director of Market Insights, data.ai.
However, Faisal Qawsah, founder and chief analyst, techARC, said the increase in downloads was due to money spent on marketing campaigns and not purely organic growth.
According to data.ai, Garena’s Free Fire, the battle royale game for Singapore-based Sea Ltd, which India banned in February, and Ludo King from Mumbai-based Gametion Technologies, were the top gaming apps by downloads in Q1. Carrom also appeared. Pool, Merge Fight, and Candy Crush Saga are among the top five gaming apps.
According to Kawoosa, the popularity of Free Fire is not surprising. “It is difficult to switch to other games very quickly. Users get stuck in games for various reasons.”
Indonesia topped the list of 16 countries where users spend the most time on apps and games with a daily average of 5.7 hours.
The time spent by mobile phone users in India using apps and games every day has skyrocketed since the pandemic began and people have been confined to their homes.
According to a report released by ReedSeer in November 2021, the gaming industry in India is expected to grow to $7 billion by 2026 from $2.2 billion in 2020. The revenue share from in-app game purchases is also expected to rise from 25% in 2020. to 31% by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 30-40%.
The boom in online shopping has also spurred digital payments. According to March data published by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the volume of digital payments in India jumped 33% in the fiscal year ending March 31. The year saw digital transactions of Rs 7,422 crore, sharply up from Rs 5,554 crore in FY21.
Unpaid chat apps have also entered the segment offering UPI transactions. For example, WhatsApp added its payment option in 2020 with a maximum of 20 million users due to the cap set by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which did not allow any single operator to have more than 30% of the UPI payment market.
However, on April 13, the NPCI relaxed its rules for WhatsApp, allowing Meta to add an additional 60 million users.
The increase in online payments has also led to competition in the super applications space. After Paytm and Jio Platforms, Tata Digital has also launched a super app called Neu that integrates its various apps and shopping services like Croma, BigBasket and Tata 1mg under one umbrella. It has a built-in payment system that supports UPI and card payments and works inside the app.
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