Worldwide there are more than one billion mobile device users. In India with the prevalence of Smartphones, nearly half of online access comes only from smart mobile device users. With the passing days the demand of these smart mobile handsets may further soar up and also the demand for compatible mobile applications may gear up in the same fashion.
Latest research conducted by Netscribes on Indian people confirms that the expected number of smartphone users may reach approx 400 million by the end of 2016 and around 75.1 million mobile app downloads by 2017.
While comparing with any other country around the globe, every year India contributes the highest number of internet users. As per the reports of IAMAI (The Internet and Mobile Association Of India) up to June 30, 2015, around 52 million consumers gained access to the Internet compared to the previous year. These findings are ensuring a huge profit in the mobile applications development market that is expected to cross INR 32 Billion by the end of year 2017.
As per Yahoo’s latest report, mobile app usage in India grew by 131 per cent and outpaced global app usage.
Until last year the biggest challenge for Indian mobile developers was to begin earning from their apps. Now in India, the app monetization is on the rise, especially with native ads such as a news story in a news app.
So, these major industrial boost and shift are showing a huge mobile app business prospects and also driving entrepreneurs to focus around the mobile platform.
Mobile Applications Development Impact On Indian User’s Behaviour
Mobile Apps are contributing one third of their company’s sales in Indian market.
The major drivers for the growth of mobile app market in India are:-
- An exponential rise in number of smartphone users.
- Huge availability of various options for internet data plans.
According to a survey done by Ericsson, Indian people are spending an average of three hours per day on their mobile phones specially for messaging, using m-Commerce and using other consumer apps to fulfill their requirements. A major shift of Indian users behavior from e-commerce to m-commerce can be seen with the round the clock usage of mobile shopping apps.
Indian users behavior towards their mobile apps usage can be categorised with following examples:
- A rapid growth can be seen among mobile payment apps, the popular names are PayTm and Mobikwik, which are attracting a lots of users.
- Popularity of music in Indian culture has explored another area for mobile music streaming apps such as Gaana and Saavn are popularly known for online streaming music on inexpensive phones with lesser in-built storage.
- Transportation app is an another important category and popular examples named as Ola emerged as a market leader with over 60% market share in India. Other big players in this segment are Uber, Meru, Tab and Airport Taxis.
- In the entertainment and food categories, Bookmyshow and Zomato are popular. Zomato provides useful information to food loving customers for different restaurants and their listing charges fees on the site. Whereas, at Bookmyshow users can buy movie tickets directly from its site.
On analysing previous years mobile application market revenue trend in India, we can expect the same steady growth in the revenue for the current year also.
The successful launching of 3G and 4G LTE technologies are further contributing to propel mobile apps market and expected to increase by 166.8% per year.
Scope and Challenges
Following major Scope and Challenges are hitting hard on Mobile Applications Market In India:
Dynamics of Mobile App Market
As per current market scenario in India, experts have found Android as a leading mobile App development player that is very much opposite to the international market scenario specifically in US where iOS is the major player for mobile app development. In India iOS mobile app development accounts for merely 2%.
Popular Mobile Application Categories
We have already discussed above about some of the popular mobile apps currently impacting on Indian user’s behaviour. One of the reputed research analyst of Netscribes also categorised all mobile apps on the basis of their popularity in India in increasing order. As per their review, in India the most popular apps are Social Media, News and Infotainment followed by Mobile Games, Music and Video Streaming.
Willingness To Pay for Paid App
Some of the previous researches are expecting that total users spending may fall by USD 0.81 in the coming years, it may sound true! But this can be overcome by the increased number of 3G & 4G users.
By the end of year 2017, the total revenue generated by paid apps is expected to reach billions.
A Language Can Be A Barrier
In India, for a mobile application operator language barrier can be a major problem to face. Here, only a quarter of population who owns smart phones can comfortable read or write in English language. Worldwide mostly mobile applications uses English in its preferred platform, so mobile apps are encountering a severe problem to penetrate in a wide Indian market.
Affordability for Smart Phones
No matter, popularity of smart phones among mobile users is increasing day by day, but a large portion of people are still unable to afford these expensive phones and bound to use economical basic feature mobile phones. So, a big mass of mobile app developers have to concentrate more on creating mobile apps that can be functional on basic feature phones also.
Popularity Of Mobile Money Transaction Applications
Today, we can witness an interesting trend and rise in number of money transactions through popular mobile applications i.e. Paytm & Mobiwik etc. On yearly basis these mobile apps transactions accounts for approx seven million. Moreover, implementation of new finance application models are allowing more safe and secure transactions and thereby encouraging the user’s willingness to pay through secured mobile applications.
The Future Opportunities
Presently, India has made its name by registering the top 5 mobile application in global mobile apps market. It is not going to stop here! In years to come, we can see an upward drift with many more possibilities to grow in the mobile app market. This can be further fueled with the improvement in quality of value added services provided by the major mobile companies.
A huge number of publishers and the renowned software companies are now looking to enter the Indian mobile app market and expected to fuel its growth even further in coming years.
What is your plan for creating your own Mobile App?
Without a mobile app development, your business can not flourish and remain incomplete. It is the high time to enter in to the mobile app market. Do not let your competitors to snatch this opportunity. It would be a big mistake to wait for a right time related to mobile app. Create your own app now! And reach out to your vast potential audience.
If you have any business idea in your mind, then do share it with us.
Our Mobile Application team at TBI have more than six years expertise to create native consumer and enterprise apps on various mobile platforms, specifically for iOS and Android. We work on the latest tools, frameworks and SDKs to develop updated and cutting edge apps.
Add wings to your dream ideas by reaching us.
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