India is a very important and one of the most rapidly growing Android market in the world. Here you will find various kind of users with different usage styles. Some want the latest in technology and switch their phones every quarter, whereas the others stick to their old and faithful Android smartphones for quite a few years.
So, it becomes very important to study such a market with huge potential especially if you are a smartphone or a mobile accessory manufacturer, or even an app developer. Fortumo and NASSCOM have done a survey and prepared a report on the usage patterns and styles of Android users in India. We are summarising its key points so you can derive some useful insights for the benefit of your business.
Fortumo’s Android in-app purchase SDK has been used to find out all the in-app purchases made by the users on Android, whereas NASSCOM is sharing its knowledge from a development point of view. NASSCOM’s main aim is to build India into a gaming hub, and improvement of Government and industrial interface for enhancing the international outreach of the country.
The report covers various aspects of Android usage trends such as OS version, screen resolution, popular Android brands, etc.
Indian Gamers Vs. The Rest Of The World
Android gamers in India spend much less money on in-game purchases vs. the Android gamers in U.S. and Germany. The possible reasons for this are the different mind-sets of the Indians and might also depend on their earnings. Americans and Germans earn much more than Indians hence can freely spend a few dollars on in-game purchases without even thinking twice.
As per the local analytics, 15% of the games are launched offline. Users can also enjoy these games without even connecting to the internet. The report also mentions that 21.4% of users prefer online gaming while 76.8% users like offline gaming.
Android Versions In Use
As per the report, Indians use various version of the Android operating system starting from Gingerbread to KitKat.
2.49% Android users in the country use Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread OS, while 2.3.6 Gingerbread OS is being used by a total of 3.75% users.
Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2. is by far the most popular OS version in the country and is used by 30.39% users.
Android KitKat v4.4.2 is used by a significant 19.17% users whereas other Android versions are used by 3.11% Android users in India. Interestingly, the report doesn’t mention anything about the remaining percent of Android users in the country.
Popular Display Resolutions
We were shocked when the statistics pointed 800*320 pixels as the most popular display resolution being used by 37.04% users. The least popular display resolution according to the report is, FHD (1920×1080 pixels) which is being used by 5.35% Android users.
It is worth noting that the report doesn’t specify when the companies collected the data, and assuming from the fact that there is no mention of Android Lollipop and 2K displays we are expecting it to be based on at least a year-old data.
Favourite Place For Downloading Apps
Most of the users download apps from Google Play where they have a choice to download either free or paid apps. Mentioning Google Play alternatives, the report points out that App store (possibly Amazon Appstore) is also used by a large number of users. Other alternative sources for downloading Android apps are Mobogenie, Mobango, Idea, Airtel, Slideme, Opera, Lgworld, Android Pit, and Yandex.
Top 10 Android Phone Brands in India
The report also lists the most popular Android brands in India in terms of their market share. Samsung occupies the top spot here followed by Micromax, Sony, Gionee, HTC, Xolo, Lava, Motorola, LG, and Karbonn.
Frankly speaking, we weren’t expecting Gionee to be one of the top 5 Android brands in India.
Some of the notable brands which couldn’t make it to this list are Microsoft and Xiaomi.
Now, in spite of the fact that this report is not based on the latest data, it should still be very useful to those who are planning to launch anything related to the Android smartphones in India. There is a huge scope in the market as the majority of people are still stuck on Android 4.2.2 and are using phones with 800*320 pixels display.
