Even as users spend 4.6 hrs on phones daily, app expenditure mere $0.5 bn in India

Consumer expenditure on mobile applications increased 20% year-on-year to nearly $143 billion in 2020, according to application analytics and market data platform App Annie.

The report showed that China and the US spent $48.53 billion and $32.53 billion, respectively, on mobile application purchases, while the expenditure in India was a mere $0.5 billion.

The data for the report was collated from 11 industries across 30 countries, and analysed on App Annie’s intelligence platform, a statement said.

“The world has forever changed. While people stay at home across the world, we saw mobile habits accelerate by three years,” Theodore Krantz, CEO of App Annie, said.

The time spent on mobile phones by Android users surged 20% year-on-year, with an average user spending 4.2 hours on their phone daily. For Indian users, however, the number increased from 3.3 hours in 2019 to 4.6 hours in 2020.

Read: India to trump global internet mobile user growth rate by 2023: Cisco 

The time spent on their phones by Gen Z, millennials and baby boomer users increased 16%, 18% and 30%, respectively, year-on-year.

In comparison to 2019, Indians increased the time spent on stock market and investment applications by 75% this year, compared to the global average of 55%, the report showed. People in the country spent most time on fintech applications Zerodha, Google Pay, PhonePe, Angel Broking and Moneycontrol, with the number of finance application downloads showing a 25% increase.

Read: The rise and rise of digital-first brokerage platforms

The US, South Korea, Canada and Mexico recorded more than 100% growth in usage of investment and stock related applications. 

Separately, social media and messaging platforms WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Truecaller and TikTok were the most used, with Telegram and MX Takatak gaining ground. 

The mobile phone sector, the report said, is on track to surpass $120 billion in 2021 -- that is 1.5 times the size of the overall gaming market. Mobile usage fuelled a 45% increase in user engagement, led mostly by the pandemic and global go-digital initiatives, the report said.  

The year 2020 saw mobile phone companies raising a total of $73 billion, a 27% increase from 2019, according to Crunchbase data. Global funding for mobile technology has more than doubled over the past five years, particularly in the verticals of financial services, transportation, commerce and shopping, while ad spends have risen 26% year-on-year to $240 billion, the data showed.