India Responsible for Nearly 20% of Global App Downloads from April-June
A report from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower has once again shone a light on the importance of the Indian gaming industry to the global ecosystem.
As per the firm's latest study, from April-June of this year, Indian users were responsible for 2.7 billion app downloads from a global total of 15.1 billion downloads.
That means India was responsible for 18% of all downloads - roughly in proportion to its global population percentage. But this number is even more impressive when you consider India has only around 400 million smartphone users, and a smartphone penetration rate well below the likes of China and the USA at about 30%.
Ludo King was by far the most popular app downloaded during the April-June period, notching up around 48.3 million downloads, up from 29.5 million downloads in the January-March timeframe.
"Ludo King has fared particularly well during the Covid-19 pandemic, with downloads increasing dramatically. In February, the title generated 10.8 million downloads, while in April it accumulated 26 million downloads, an increase of 140.7%", said Craig Chapple, Mobile Insights Strategist at Sensor Tower told The Times of India.
Global titles like PUBG (under threat of being banned) and Call of Duty remain extremely popular in India, but further analysis shows that locally-created games are growing in popularity.
Aside from the success of Ludo King, Nextwave Media's World Cricket Championship reported a 25% rise in daily active users, a 25% rise in new users, and saw in-app purchases almost double during the pandemic.
Manish Agarwal, CEO of, Nazara Technologies, which owns Nextwave Media, has argued that "the green shoots started pre-Covid and Covid has accelerated the growth." He expects India to turn from being just a large consumption market of users downloading apps, to a larger market for monetization through in-app buys.
Throughout the last few months, Glaws has reported heavily on how the gaming industry in India has benefited from the lockdown, with gaming platforms seeing huge traffic, and predictions from investment banks putting the total value of the Indian gaming market at US3.75 billion by 2024.
In response to the country's growing appetite for online and mobile gaming, the All India Gaming Federation appointed three new experts to its panel.
