 "Super apps")
Indians downloaded 25.96 billion apps on mobile devices that run on the key operating systems, Android and iOS, in 2023, according to analytics platform data.ai (formerly App Annie). The number was slightly lower than the 28 billion downloads in 2022. The 2023 number is based on data from January 1 to December 30.
Collective revenues from app stores of different publishers stood at US $415 million in India, and despite a rise it is still 25th in the global pecking order. For instance, Google Play Store’s revenues were $19 million last year, followed by Sea with $16 million, dating app Bumble ($11 million) and Tencent ($10 million), according to data.ai. Revenues of apps such as Sea, Bumble and Tencent include shares paid by the developers to app stores.
Among app categories, gaming led the download numbers with 9.3 billion, followed by social (over 2.36 billion), and photo and video (1.86 billion). Other popular categories for downloads included finance (1.6 billion), entertainment (1.3 billion), shopping (1.10 billion) business (446 million), education (439 million) productivity tools (995 million) and lifestyle apps (468 million).
Google remained the most popular app in India last year with cumulative downloads of 449 million after an addition of 40 million between January 1 and December 23, 2023. It was followed by Instagram at 364 million (30 million additions), Reliance Jio at 266 million (18 million additions), Flipkart at 220 million (28 million additions), WhatsApp at 210 million (20 million additions) and Meta at 207 million (21 million additions).
At the parent company level, however, Meta was far ahead of all others (thanks to Instagram, WhatsApp and Meta in its kitty) reaching a total of 782 million with 70 million downloads added last year. Google’s parent Alphabet was second with a total of 527 million.
In a key segment of business, e-commerce player Meesho slugged it out with Flipkart’s Shopsy, which caters to smaller cities and towns. Meesho, with active users of 35.8 million at the close of 2023, was comfortably ahead of Shopsy which had 11 million-plus active users.
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E-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart were also neck and neck with each other in terms of active users. By the year-end, Amazon had over 76 million active users compared to Flipkart’s 82.1 million.
In the over-the-top entertainment space, Disney+ Hotstar had over 67 million active users, while Netflix pushed up its numbers to over 16 million. They were followed by Amazon Prime, at over 10 million, and Zee 5 (6.7 million).
