India continues to lead global mobile game downloads but numbers decline: Sensor Tower

India continued to remain the biggest mobile game market in the world, in terms of downloads. According to the latest monthly data published by Sensor Tower, in December 2021, Indians downloaded 717.4 million games, accounting for a market share of 14.6 percent of global mobile game downloads. However, the total download of mobile games in India continued its monthly decline in December as well — down by 5.9 percent since October and 3.4 percent since November.

In October 2021, Indians accounted for 16.9 percent of all mobile games downloaded in the world. According to Sensor Tower, India’s download figures are still significantly higher than the nearest entrants in the list, with USA accounting for 9 percent of all mobile game downloads and Brazil at 8.2 percent.

However, while Indians continue to be among the highest downloaders of mobile games and apps due to increasing smartphone penetration in the country, the country lags significantly behind in terms of overall app spends. A recent report on the mobile app market by market research firm App Annie stated that while Indians spent about $170 million on in-app purchases (including games and general apps), they still didn’t make it to the global top 20 of spenders on apps and in-app features.

In terms of the overall app market, App Annie pegged India as the second highest overall downloader of apps in the world through 2021. Sensor Tower, meanwhile, places India as a clear leader in the mobile gaming space, suggesting that the increasing number of smartphone users in the country are also being led on by the prospect of mobile gaming being a lucrative one.

In terms of game-specific demand, Sensor Tower also states that Indians were the highest downloader of Free Fire — a battle royale mobile game with 24 million downloads in December 2021. According to the report, more than one of every four downloads of the game were made by users in India.