Blog Oct. 25, 2017
Characteristics of India’s Mobile App Market
Based on the data of August 2017
India has a population of 1.3 billion, the second largest in the world following China. Plus its growing economy, India is a highly expected market for Japanese apps and publishers. So what is the current situation of India’s app market? Is it already accepting Japanese apps?
This time we will be talking about popular apps and the situation of Japanese apps in India based on the download numbers and sales amount ranking on Google Play India.
Despite the downloads being more than 700 million monthly in India, the billing rate is low, even the most sold app had only 70 million yen sales.
The first thing that surprised us about India was its number of downloads. The single month total download of August 2017 from Google Play was 750 million, the amount was as expected from the world’s second most populated country. If we look at the top five downloaded apps, their monthly downloads have all been over 3 million. The top was the messenger app “WhatsApp Messenger” from the USA; the fourth was also from the USA, a photo editing app “PicsArt Photo Studio”; and the fifth was the world renowned game app “Subway Surfers” from Denmark. The American and European apps are also popular in India.
Despite all, the problem is India’s low billing rate. The total sales of August 2017 on Google Play was only 650 million yen. Considering the monthly downloads was 700 million, this billing rate is actually really low.
If we look at the top five sold apps, the top was the billiard game “8 Ball Pool”, and the game app “Clash of Clans” that made a global hit was the third. However, the sales amount has only reached 70 million yen monthly for the top “8 Ball Pool” and 40 million yen monthly for “Clash of Clans”.
Another characteristic of India’s app market is that the majority of the top 5 sold apps are poker games. In India, simple poker games are more popular rather than complicated ones. Users are paying for these simple games instead.
The top 5 downloaded apps on Google Play India for August 2017
The top 5 sold apps on Google Play India for August 2017
Japanese apps are struggling to survive in India. The most downloaded “Pokemon Duel” ranked 126th out of all; whereas the most sold “PES 2017 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER” ranked 150th only.
On Google Play India’s download ranking, the top Japanese app was “Pokemon Duel”. Around 560,000 downloads was only ranked 126th in India, showing the obvious struggle of Japanese apps in the market. In India, even for the Japanese representative app, it is difficult to say that it was popular enough for the country.
Japanese app “Super Mario Run” that attracted worldwide attention was ranked 617th on the download chart. This is pretty similar regarding the sales amount, Konami’s soccer game “PES 2017 PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER” was ranked 150th for the sales and the amount has not even reached 1 million monthly.
India does have a large population of 1.3 billion, and even though they also have a huge download number of smartphone apps, the number of people who are willing to pay for the apps is still very low. In addition, Japanese apps are not very well known in the country. The number of downloads should not be the only focus, but the continuous watch of the billing rate, plus development of a good strategy targeted at the India market would be considered wiser in this situation.
The top 5 downloaded Japanese apps on Google Play India for August 2017
The top 5 sold Japanese apps on Google Play India for August 2017
About PRIORI DATA
“PRIORI DATA” is a company that analyses data from the smartphone app market, it was founded in 2013, and the headquarters are in Berlin, Germany. It provides all downloading number and sales amount data of the ranked apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
They are able to provide data up to 57 countries, all data categories including game/sub category. The price is also very reasonable even for start-up game development companies, and they also have free trials. In Japan, it has been adopted as the official mobile data for “2016CESA Game White Paper” edited by the CESA; “Smartphone White Paper” edited by Mobile Content Forum and the “Famitsu Mobile Game Hakusho”. From June this year, they have also added the data for ASO (App Store Optimization).
For more information, please refer to http://www.prioridata.net/
