An image from India’s 2010 robot movie Enthiran.
Move over, America. The future of the app economy lies firmly in the hands of Asian countries.
As of 2016, US smartphone users are no longer the ones spending the most money on iPhone apps – it’s the Chinese.
The US also doesn’t contribute the most Play Store app downloads anymore – that’s India now. Indian Android users also spend more time using apps than their US counterparts.
China retains its position as top iPhone app downloader, while Japan still spends most money on Android apps.
Each of App Annie’s four major categories is now dominated by an Asian country. Image Source: App Annie.
These findings come from App Annie’s just released 2016 Retrospective report.
Sheer force of numbers
This development is somewhat inevitable due to China’s and India’s massive populations: more smartphone users mean more downloads and more revenue opportunities.
China’s and India’s lead over the US will likely grow even further.
At 599 million, the number of Chinese mobile internet users is higher than that of the US and India combined. India’s is significantly higher than the US’. Image: Tech in Asia. Data: We are Social.
When will we see India app revenue rise?
The question is, when will India’s surge in downloads and time spent in apps lead to better monetization opportunities for app creators?
It took Chinese iPhone users a mere two years to graduate from being top downloaders to top money spenders in apps. (China is also a major global spender on Android apps, but because App Annie only tracks app activity through Google’s Play store, which is unavailable in China, these numbers don’t show in the report.)
But the Android app ecosystem in India is a different beast. Right now, India doesn’t even make it into the top 10 of global Play Store revenue.
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, is in a similar position. It saw healthy growth in downloads and time spent in apps last year, but didn’t spend much money.
Mobile ads as revenue strategy
Japan’s been the world leader for in-app spending on Android phones for years. That’s largely due to the country’s infatuation with role-playing games.
Emerging market users in India or Indonesia haven’t caught up to a similar spending habit, and there’s no sign of an imminent breakthrough in App Annie’s data.
According to the firm’s app market maturity model, app revenues tend to go up once download numbers have reached a plateau. Neither country seems to have reached peak download.
Downloads in India and Indonesia are growing. Image source: App Annie.
Still, it’s a good time for app makers to get into the game, because there’s plenty of monetization opportunity in mobile ads. App Annie’s revenue rank only looks at in-app purchases.
In a separate app monetization report, the analytics firm had shown that mobile in-app advertising makes up more than half of what app publishers earn.
The figures suggest that, for the time being, app publishers in emerging markets should continue to focus on mobile ads as a revenue strategy.
This post Asia rules the global app economy, and India is its rising star appeared first on Tech in Asia.