Amid covid-induced restrictions and work from home becoming new normal, consumers are now spending on an average 4.2 hours a day on their mobile applications globally as compared to two years prior. India is leading the pack as consumers spent 80% more time in apps in Q1 2021 than they did in Q1 2019 in the country.
In the January-March period this year, daily time spent passed four hours in the US, Turkey, Mexico and India for the first time. In Brazil, South Korea and Indonesia, it was more than five hours.
“If we live in an attention economy, then there’s no doubt where people are currently directing their eyeballs. Our new data for Q1 2021 reveals that consumers are spending more time than ever in apps – and the surges in some countries have sent daily dwell times past five hours,” app analytics firm App Annie said in a report on Thursday.
The top apps by downloads, consumer spend and monthly active users (MAUs) across Apple App Store and Google Play were TikTok, YouTube and Facebook in the January-March quarter.
“In Western markets, we can trace the rise of the two market-leading secure messaging products: Signal and Telegram. Signal places first in the UK, Germany and France, and fourth in the US,” the report mentioned.
Meanwhile, consumer spending in apps also witnessed a record growth at $32 billion (roughly Rs. 2,34,400 crores) in the first quarter of 2021, according to a report. Market intelligence firm App Annie said in its latest report that the first quarter of 2021 was the biggest for the app market worldwide as it reached the milestone of $32 billion on in-app purchases across App Store and Google Play. This was 40 percent up from the first quarter of 2020.
The firm said that smartphone users spent around $9 billion (roughly Rs. 65,900 crores) more on apps and games in the first quarter over what they did in the same quarter of last year.
