App User Acquisition In India In2021and Beyond

As the second fastest-growing digital market in the world, India offers incredible opportunities for user acquisition. Not only is it rapidly growing, it is also one of the biggest. The number of Internet users in the country will reach 761 million this year, and is expected to hit a staggering 974 million in 2025.

With India’s mobile connectivity index at 56.6 points out of 100 possible, there’s still plenty of room for growth.

In this post, we’ll explore the opportunities for app advertising in this mega-market, draw the portrait of the Indian Internet user, and unpack the trends of app user acquisition. Let’s get the ball rolling.

The current state of app advertising in India:

statistics and overview

India is the second country by the number of Internet users, outpacing the US, Indonesia, and Brazil. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of the Indian Internet user base with Internet usage surging by up to 30%.

The rapid growth of Internet usage in India has led to a boom in digital advertising. In previous years, businesses evenly spread their marketing budgets across various channels, including radio, TV, and print. After 2020, companies started to favor digital advertising and raised investments in this channel by a significant 33%.

As more than 96% of Internet users in India have mobile phones and only 56% of them own a laptop or desktop computer, mobile devices account for most of the Internet traffic. Thanks to a large variety of cheap phones, the number of Indian mobile users will only increase. It makes mobile advertising one of the fastest-growing marketing channels – mobile ad spend has grown by 38% from 2020 to 2021.

Another consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak and enduring lockdowns is a spike in app downloads in India. The country accounted for 14% of the world’s app installs in the third quarter of 2020, 2nd only to China.

As a result businesses see in-app advertising as an enticing opportunity to reach a broad audience. The majority of Indian marketers are expected to raise their investments in this promotion channel.

The evolving Indian mobile user

With a population of more than 1.4 billion people, India represents a massive market with very positive growth fundamentals across every type of media. Roughly 80% of Indians have mobile connections, and 45% of them are active Internet users.

The number of mobile Internet users in India will continue to grow in the next few years. Statista predicts that over 500 million people will only access the Internet from mobile devices by 2023 making the market a mostly mobile-only rather than mobile-first market.

But how can we characterize the average mobile user in India in 2021 and beyond? The main persona is a male around 28 years old living in a rural area. However, demographics in this giant country are far more complex as digital penetration varies from state to state.