India s app usage grew 6% in 2017

New Delhi Jan 11 (IANS) India s app usage grew six per cent in 2017 as users continued to spend more than five hours a day on their smartphones but was still down against the 11 per cent witnessed in 2016 Yahoo s Flurry Analytics said on Thursday.

However the shopping category grew by 54 per cent as consumers spent on e-commerce via mobile shopping apps.

"Users are increasingly comfortable making physical purchases on their phones with now ingrained in-app digital purchase habits. Additionally digital wallet services such as Samsung Pay allow seamless access to stored payment information for mobile purchases " the report said.

"Music media and entertainment came in a close second with 43 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth reaffirming users shift to mobile devices to consume media."

Meanwhile lifestyle category witnessed the steepest decline with -40 per cent usage in 2017.

The decrease in this category for both Google Play Store and Apple App Store highlights an app s need to build daily usage habits in order to retain or increase (YoY) growth.

Gaming also saw another year of decline in sessions with -15 per cent in 2017.

Last year was also a growth year for phablets as they represented a staggering 55 per cent of active devices.

"As medium phone users trade in their devices it is clear that they re opting for phablets as 9 per cent of the phablet growth came from medium phone adoption decline " the report added.

--IANS
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