In the ongoing digital era, it’s imposible to imagine a day without mobile. It is a must-have gadget in our pockets. Interestingly, people are spending more time and money on mobile apps than ever before. The similar trends are obseved in the recent report. According to the most recent data.ai (previously AppAnnie) report, the average daily time spent on Android phones in India increased a 32.4% between 2019 and 2022. On an average, Indians spent 4.9 hours per day on their mobile phones in 2022. That equates to nearly 29% of the waking hours if we sleep 7 hours a day.
Android users in South Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore reported heavy app usage in 2022, with an average of more than 5 hours per day spent in apps.
Even though more time was spent on mobile, the ranking of India has declined. In 2022, the country ranked 8th out of 20 countries surveyed by data.ai, in terms of average hours spent on Android mobile per day per user. While in 2021, India was the 5th largest country in terms of the average daily time spent on Android mobile phones (4.7 hours).
It is interesting to note that, on yearly basis, India ranked second out of the 20 surveyed nations in terms of the total time spent on Android phones. Overall, Android users in india spent a total of 748.3 billion hours on mobile phones in 2022. That’s nearly 6.9% YoY increase in time spent.
The majority of time was spent on sopcial media apps. The social media apps are divided into three categories; Other Social apps (21.963 billion hours), Media Sharing Networks (17.297 billion hours), and Social Networks (11.127 billion hours).
Indian Android users also spent a significant amount of time using video-sharing apps, which fall under the Entertainment category. Approximately 4.410 billion hours were spent on video-sharing apps in 2022.
Mobile apps and games downloaded in 2022
As the time spent on mobile has increased over the years, so has the number of app downloads. The report further highlights that India remained the second largest country in terms of app downloads in 2022, though trailing behind China with distant margin. The total number of mobile app downloads in India reached a record high of 28.887 billion in 2022, across both Apple App Store and Google Play store. That’s nearly an 8.2% YoY increase from 2021 when the total app downloads in India reached 26.703 billion.
What’s more interesting is, gaming apps accounted for over 33% of all downloads across both app stores. The number of gaming app downloads in India reached an all-time high of 9.65 billion in 2022. The year-over-year growth in downloads has been quite disappointing in the last two years though. In 2020, the country recorded a whopping 63.9% YoY growth in the number of mobile game downloads, totalling 9.26 billion. However, in 2021 and 2022, the number of game downloads across app stores in India declined 0.86% YoY and 3.3% YoY, respectively.
China mainatined its numero uno position in mobile app downloads, total time spent on them and consumer spending between 2020 and 2022. The number of mobile app downloads in China increased from 96.210 billion in 2020 to 111.110 billion in 2022.
Consumer spending on mobile games slowed down
Another noteworthy aspect of the report was fall in consumer spending on moble apps in India. Though the number of app downloads and hours spent in mobile have increased, consumer spending on apps and games has fallen in the last two years.
In 2020, India spent $210 million on mobile games, with an impressive 40% YoY increase. However, in 2021, consumer spending in mobile games declined a notable 19% YoY or $40 million. The decline in gaming app spending clearly demonstrates the effects of Covid-19 pandemic when the country was dealing with issues like unemployment, rising medical expenses, rising cost of living, and so on.
In 2022, Indians spent $190 million on mobile games. There was a slight $20 million or 11.8% increase in mobile game spending in India between 2021 and 2022.
Smartphone users in India also spent millions on social media and entertainment apps, across both app stores. In 2022, Indians spent $31 million on dating apps (Social Media category), $7.2 million on file management apps (Utility and Productivity category), $5.10 million on live streaming apps (Entertainment category), and $2.5 million on communication apps (Social Media category).
