For years, India was the world’s largest app obtain market however one among its hardest locations to generate profits. That’s starting to alter as Indian customers spend extra on AI, leisure, and different premium apps.
India’s cell app market generated a report $345 million in client spending through the second quarter of this 12 months, up 35% from a 12 months earlier, based on a brand new report by Sensor Tower. The app-market intelligence agency stated the positive factors had been more and more pushed by generative AI, streaming, and productiveness apps quite than gaming, as Indian customers turned extra keen to pay for digital subscriptions.
The report quarter builds on a broader pattern of rising app monetization. India’s income per obtain has greater than doubled over the previous three and a half years, whereas quarterly app downloads have remained at round 6.3 billion since 2023.
“We’d describe India at the moment as a quickly evolving cell market with a big person base and rising willingness to pay for digital providers,” Eve Chen, an insights analyst at Sensor Tower, advised Trendster.
Chen attributed the change to the broader adoption of digital funds, together with India’s Unified Funds Interface (a system that lets folks pay instantly from their financial institution accounts) and digital wallets, which have lowered friction for in-app purchases, alongside rising acceptance of app-based subscriptions and premium digital providers.
The pattern additionally stands out globally. India’s app income noticed its quickest progress in Q2 amongst main app markets, producing greater than $200 million in quarterly client spending, per Sensor Tower’s information shared with Trendster. In distinction, Mexico grew 30% and Turkey 25%, whereas U.S. app income really declined 3% over the identical interval.
“These figures recommend that India is not simply the world’s largest market by downloads, however can also be rising as one of many fastest-growing markets for app monetization,” Chen advised Trendster.
India nonetheless trails extra mature app markets by a large margin. Income per obtain stands at about $4.60 within the U.S., $3.90 in South Korea, and $6.10 in Japan, in contrast with a small fraction of that in India. Nonetheless, Chen stated the trajectory issues greater than absolutely the stage, with India’s steadily enhancing monetization suggesting important room for long-term progress.
Generative AI has emerged as one of many fastest-growing segments, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude collectively accounting for practically 83% of India’s AI app income in Q2, based on Sensor Tower’s information shared with Trendster.
A lot of India’s app income progress can also be being pushed by non-gaming apps. Non-gaming classes, Sensor Tower stated, accounted for 68% of India’s cell app income within the first half of 2026, up from 58% three years earlier.
The most recent information additionally suggests international subscription apps proceed to be among the many greatest beneficiaries of rising app spending in India, with Google One changing into India’s highest-grossing cell app through the quarter. Streaming platforms similar to Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Sony LIV, and JioHotstar additionally noticed rising client spending. Gaming additionally bucked the worldwide pattern, with income rising 3.7% from the earlier quarter regardless of a worldwide decline, per Sensor Tower.
App intelligence agency Appfigures additionally sees India’s app subscription market persevering with to develop, though it says the tempo has slowed after an AI-fueled surge over the previous two years. Subscription income remains to be rising, however a lot of the preliminary pleasure round AI has abated, Ariel Michaeli, the corporate’s founder and CEO, advised Trendster.
“The numbers are nonetheless staggering,” Michaeli added. Appfigures estimates that ChatGPT generates about $60,000 a day in India and attracted round 1.8 million downloads over the previous month, though that’s down from roughly $80,000 a day final October.
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