India is the world's fastest growing mobile market, faster than even China, with the country now accounting for 10 percent of global smart phone shipments, according to IDC. Indian consumers have a relatively high in-app buying rate compared to the global average, especially in shopping apps.
"India is a mobile-first country that is very app-centric, with the average Indian app user making in-app purchases valued at $5.50 (USD) over a 90-day period, when taking into account all app categories," said Sanjay Trisal, India Country Manager at AppsFlyer, NewsVoir reported.
"Consumers of shopping apps in particular tend to buy fast, with about one in every two users who make in-app purchases doing so within the first day after downloading a shopping app. Further, in the travel category, nearly all users who download a travel app end up making at least one purchase or booking within two weeks of installing the app."
The report, which was launched at AppsFlyer's Mobile Attribution and Marketing Analytics (MAMA) Conference in Delhi, revealed that the country's booming app economy has now surpassed the US in terms of marketing-driven app install numbers to become the top country globally.
Despite the healthy growth rate of app installs, marketers are facing challenges in user retention. AppsFlyer's data shows that 30 days after installing an app, only a handful of users in India remain active in that app. Three months in, across an entire week, the rate is just over 5 percent.
The report, which looked at three broad categories of shopping, travel and entertainment apps, also revealed other key findings: An emerging market like India, ranks sixth globally in terms of number of minutes spent on apps per day There was a triple-fold increase in the average number of installs per app when comparing January 2017 to January 2018. The share of non-organic installs in the app install pie grew 30 percent year-over-year in 2017.
On the other hand, organic app discovery dropped nearly 10 percent India suffers from a high uninstall rate due to limited storage space in the Android dominated market. Close to one third (32 percent) of installed apps are deleted within 30 days. Retention is also a challenge with only about 5 percent of users active 30 days after installing an app.
App install fraud is on the rise in India, up 85 percent since January, 2017. Although this figure still stands lower than the global average due to low payout, the scale and desire to match advertiser expectations will see more fraudsters increasing activity in the region and polluting data that is key for marketers to make informed decisions.
India is increasingly attractive to non-Indian apps, especially Chinese ones. More Chinese apps are now in the top 200 compared to Indian apps. The share of non-Indian apps in the categories of shopping and travel grew by 84 percent and 45 percent respectively. In contrast, the share of Indian-based apps has risen year on year in the entertainment category.
"AppsFlyer is dedicated to helping the marketing industry in India and Asia grow to its fullest potential, and the MAMA event series is a passion project of ours that represents one of many steps we're taking to create more awareness around the ways marketers are winning in today's app economy," said Oren Kaniel, CEO and Co-founder, AppsFlyer.
"Mobile is the vehicle that drives the increasingly dynamic customer journey, and data is the fuel powering the business decisions that capitalize on the moments that matter. The MAMA experience is a great chance to promote local learning, participate in high-level networking, and get inspired so that we create an ecosystem with better mobile measurement, marketing ROI and business success - which is ultimately the aim of AppsFlyer as well."
Speaking on a panel at MAMA New Delhi, India, through its initiative of Digital India, is looking to unleash the true potential of embracing a connected economy. Raghav Bahl, VP, Bessemer Venture Partners, conveyed the importance of India investing more in education and building world class institutions to further help propel economic growth and Rajinder Balaraman, VP, Matrix Partners, thinks that India is innovating at a global level. Balaraman shared an example of cab hiring app Ola, which recently launched operations in Australia and is getting good traction in that market.
Balaraman believes "We will have far more companies from India taking the global route in the coming times." Talking at the MAMA Conference about the challenge of becoming more sophisticated in data-driven approaches to mobile marketing, Hitesh Malhotra, CMO, Nykaa said, "Many people still look at elementary science like cost per install or number of impressions per install so I ask them to look beyond that because your cost will always vary between 50 cents to $2 per install but the real science is how long they will stick around and what are the kind of purchases will be made by the customer on a monthly, three month or six month basis."
AppsFlyer, the leading mobile attribution and marketing analytics company, released its "State of App Marketing in India" report, offering insights into India's mobile marketing landscape, the latest trends and how to navigate India's mobile ecosystem.
