App downloads to hit 9 billion in India next year

The emerging Indian market, which is drawing the attention of a number of smartphone manufacturers, will have the app downloads figure crossing 9 billion by next year with an annual growth rate of about 75 percent, claims a new study.
Associated Chambers of Commerce teaming up with Industry of India have published the results of their joint study – Digitization and Mobility, revealing that the number of app downloads will increase by around 7.44 billion by the end of 2015 from the 1.56 billion mark in 2012.
The study noted that the campaigns in social networks during the 2014 Lok Sabha election has led to the paradigm shift with about 60 million tweets posted starting from the announcement of polls till the balloting ended. More than 29 million Facebook users have been involved in around 227 interactions related to the elections.

The report highlighted that the age group between 16 and 30 years have downloaded the majority of the apps, while 35 percent of the total smartphone users in India spending at least 1.5 hours a month on average on the most popular video app – Google’s YouTube.

According to the report, India’s largest telecom companies have seen a dramatic growth rate in the Mobile TV by around 400 percent, in terms of viewership. Internet data traffic related to streaming videos is estimated to rise to more than 64 percent in 2016-2017 from the 41 percent in 2011-2012.
The report also pointed out that the adoption rate of smartphones and cloud services is increasing, resulting in a wider choice of content from the pay TV providers.

However, the study noted that Indians are still reluctant to download large file-sized games or apps, adding that the big issue for developers in the price sensitive market is monetization.