App downloads of top 20 mobile-first markets up by 11%, says Data.ai

Data.ai’s latest report on the state of mobile shows that global app downloads grew 11% year over year in 2022.

Southeast Asia represented about half of the top 15 mobile-first countries. Among them, Pakistan stood out with a 35% year-over-year spike in app downloads.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Its neighbor India ranked second for the same measure among the top 20 mobile-first markets. The country’s mobile users downloaded about 29 billion apps in 2022, up from 26.7 billion in 2021.

To tabulate downloads, Data.ai does not count app updates or when the same account re-downloads an app, even if it’s on another device.

Its report adds that China and India have bagged first and second place among the top 20 mobile-first markets in both hours spent and downloads on mobile phones in 2022.

On average, the top 10 countries spent more than five hours daily on mobile. In comparison, the same figure stands at 4.4 hours for American users.

In India, shopping/ecommerce apps had the highest uptick in downloads out of all categories, with 318 million more downloads in 2022 than in 2021.

“There is explosive growth in India,” David Kim, managing director of Data.ai, tells Tech in Asia.

For instance, downloads for coupon and rewards apps in the country jumped 179% year over year, while buy now, pay later apps saw an increase of 136% year over year.

Explaining the surge in India

Kim credits the swift rise in India’s retail app downloads to two factors. One is the growth in the ownership of mobile phones.

According to Deloitte’s 2022 Technology, Media, and Entertainment, Telecom predictions, India is set to have 1 billion smartphone users by 2026.

The country will also be the second-largest smartphone manufacturer in the next five years, the report notes.

The second reason, Kim shares, is the development of mobile infrastructure. In India, operators are spending money to upgrade to 4G and 5G networks, which lets people expand their usage of mobile phones.