India dominates AI app market, capturing 21% of global downloads in 2024

However, a significant number of Indian users access AI applications for free. North America and Europe accounted for 68 percent of the in-app purchase revenue generated by AI applications

India has emerged as the leading market for AI mobile application adoption, accounting for 21 per cent of the global downloads, which exceeded 2.2 billion in the first eight months of 2024, according to data from Sensor Tower, as reported by The Economic Times.

Among the most popular AI applications are chatbot platforms like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini, alongside various image and video editing apps. Despite this popularity, a significant portion of Indian users access these applications for free.

In-app purchase revenue

In contrast, North America and Europe generated 68 per cent of the in-app purchase revenue from AI applications, which has already surpassed $2 billion worldwide this year, with India’s contribution being less than 2 per cent. Sensor Tower projects that total revenue from AI applications will reach $3.3 billion for the entirety of 2024, marking a 51 per cent increase compared to the previous year, the report said.

 

Year 2023 saw remarkable growth in global AI and chatbot applications, with downloads skyrocketing over 14 times from the previous year to nearly 600 million. By August 2024, downloads of these applications have already surpassed 630 million, exceeding the total for all of 2023, the report mentioned.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT secured the top position in global downloads, followed by the AI image editing application Remini. The Photoroom AI Photo Editor and Google Gemini ranked third and fourth, respectively.

The report quoted Neil Shah, partner and co-founder at Counterpoint Research, as saying the growing popularity of consumer chatbots for generative tasks, including text, image, and video creation. He highlighted that simple use cases like transcription, language translation, note-taking, summarisation, and virtual assistants will see widespread adoption soon.

Shah also mentioned the shift toward an ‘app-less ecosystem’, driven by AI processing capabilities on the edge, facilitated by Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS. He explained that AI systems capable of operating autonomously could extract information, process data, and perform tasks on users’ behalf.

However, to support this increased AI functionality, device manufacturers will need to innovate, focusing on faster processors and greater memory storage. Currently, mini models require around 4-5 GB of storage to be downloaded onto devices.

The news report quoted Shah saying while the device ecosystem is prepared to handle AI in terms of computational and processing capabilities — highlighting Qualcomm and MediaTek’s neural processing unit (NPU) chipsets — manufacturers will need to provide at least 12 GB of RAM to facilitate effective AI applications and agentic workflows.