India was the largest mobile games market for downloads in H1 2021

According to a new report from App Annie, India was the largest mobile games market in the world for downloads in the first half of 2021, with 4.8 billion installs. Nearly 1 of every 5 global mobile game downloads came from India in H1 2021. 

For the period, Ludo King was the most popular game in India in terms of downloads and average monthly active users. Battle Royale games also rank among the most downloaded, top grossing and the most monthly active users with Free Fire (#8 by downloads, #1 by spend, #3 by MAU) among notable titles. 

Although Ludo King is locally developed, it is something of an anomaly, the data says. In fact, domestic titles barely figure in the India games charts; just 7.6% of the top 1000 are made by homegrown publishers. The situation is very different in other regions. In China, the home grown ratio is 60%.

Increasing game downloads and in-game time spent were also reflected in the monetization strategies of the games. The report found that 15% more of the top 200 grossing games incorporated in-app advertising into the monetization model alongside in-app purchases. 

The data also revealed India to be the second largest market worldwide for app downloads to date in 2021. This is building on an impressive 2020, in which Indian consumers installed 24 billion apps – up 28% year on year. India is also among the most mobile-first markets in the world with some of the highest daily time spent in apps. According to App Annie, in the third quarter of 2021, 4.8 average daily hours are spent in apps in the country. 

India was also the fastest growing market globally for both mobile apps and mobile games in 2020.