India’s telecom and Internet market have been growing phenomenally for the last few years, especially with the introduction of low-cost smartphones and 3G/4G network. This has led to many Indians accessing data services on smartphones as well as on other low-cost mobile devices. Consequently, the increasing penetration of smartphones, tablets, and mobile internet has triggered an app revolution in India.
According to a Deloitte report, the Indian app industry is likely to see around 9 billion downloads in 2015, 5X more than 1.56 billion downloads in 2012. In 2015 the revenue from paid apps is estimated to be over INR 15 billion (US$240 million) against INR 9 billion (US$140 million) in 2014, indicating a steady rise in the download of paid apps.
Mobile Apps in India Gaining Traction
Due to the exploded adoption of smartphones and mobiles, backed by a growing app developer community, the Indian app market is likely to carry an enormous opportunity for local, as well as regional apps. India’s app economy is already growing multifold with each passing quarter, and the country’s 3 lakh app developers‘ community is likely to expand drastically.  By 2017, India is estimated to have the largest developer base.
Out of 259 million Internet users in India, almost 241 million are mobile internet users, as of October 2014. As smartphones gain traction in India, market researchers expect the 3G adoption reaches 250 million by 2016.
In fact, 4G is going all the way to accelerate the pace of mobile application development in the country. With 4G, mobile application development will turn over a new leaf and will usher in a phase of unprecedented development in this segment.
Here are few of the major highlights of the report:
- In 2013, an average Indian smartphone downloaded 17 apps, out of which 4 were paid apps.
- Globally, an average smartphone downloaded 26 apps, 5 of which were paid ones.
- The smartphone penetration is set to rise to 13.4% in 2015, up from 10% in 2014.
- India is among the top three countries by the number of app downloads but fails to make it to the list of top 5 countries by the number of paid apps.
- 80% of apps being downloaded in India are global apps.
World Wide Trend Also Reflects Growth
Mobile Apps are being increasingly utilized for a variety of reasons and are becoming a part of the user’s overall psyche. The corresponding data usage is also increasing exponentially. According to Transparency Market Research, the Mobile Applications Market is expected to reach $ 54.89 billion by 2020. There are more than 3 million unique apps available to download from various app stores. However, only a few of them are able to keep the users engaged and only a minuscule percentage of this accounts for the bulk of download.
The Need for Constant Innovation
Mobile app developers need to constantly innovate and find out better features to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Hence, mobile app developers also need to cater to a range of mobile devices and platforms. The app market is intensifying with each passing day, and marketers need to market their product faster with the help of various innovative techniques.
How the Cloud is helping Mobile Application Development
Since mobile devices are now increasingly commonplace, the cloud is coming very handy for mobile application development. As data plans and smartphones are becoming more affordable in India, users are becoming more app dependent in the country. Parallel to it, the demand for enriched experiences is also growing, coupled with issues such as short attention spans and unlimited access to thousands of apps at the same time. Therefore, developers need to move quickly right from the concept stage to delivery to keep their apps stay relevant to consumers.
Some Advantages of the Cloud
The cloud computing has got its own set of advantages that developers in India, as well as other countries, where mobile apps development is showing an exponential growth curve. This is helping developers to achieve a perfect development infrastructure and work in an ecosystem that allows them to deliver their apps in no time. The cloud allows a greater degree of experimentation and reduces the cost of failure. Few additional advantages are:
- Platform Independency
- Reduce Infrastructure Downtime
- Ability to team up and enable performance in real time
- Understand customer preferences in a better manner.
- Ability to process real time information
- Ability to offer a seamless experience across mobile platforms and devices
Conclusion
Hence, the cloud has indeed become a game-changing equation for mobile applications development field, especially in an emerging Indian market. The dynamics of mobile and data usage are greatly influenced by price and usage in such countries, and even are linked to regional and local preferences.
When developers offer richer applications aided by the cloud across a wide range of smartphones and mobile devices, this helps penetration of a large spectrum of users and improve monetization process to a very large extent.
Author Bio:
Shivani Ajmerani works for Fusion Informatics Ltd., a mobile application development company that offers Custom iPhone, iPad and android application development services. She loves leveraging the immense potential of the Internet to achieve corporate goals.
