Poor State of App Monetization for “Made in India” Apps

India might be one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world, but it is yet to develop a healthy ecosystem of quality Freemium App/Game development.

I did a quick analysis of the Top 100 Apps in Google Play Store and Apple App Store and found that “Made in India” Apps fare poorly in Paid & Grossing App categories.

The situation is similar for iOS too - just 1 game out of top 100 free apps comes from India (that’s Dead Among Us by Rolocule)

Conclusion:

Indian developers have not yet cracked the app monetization formula. It’s directly dependent on the app quality & its ability to lure customers to pay. We have a long way to go. Gaming in India is even more dismal which is quite evident from the graph above.

Few reasons IMO:

1. Indians themselves are not big consumers of Freemium/Paid Apps & digital goods, hence the culture is missing.
2. We have some great talent, but risk taking abilities are low. They end up working with big companies.
3. Payment ecosystem and intention to pay for digital goods could be another reason.
4. Over-reliance on Ad-driven models plus advertising being a relatively easy to crack model didn’t encourage alternate revenue streams.
5. Indian’s love free stuff.

I will be happy to hear your feedback on this. Feel free to comment here or tag me on twitter.