Asians Downloaded More Apps than Anyone Else in the World in 2019, Study Shows Indonesia shows the most robust growth

By Aparajita Saxena

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More users in Asia Pacific are downloading new apps on their smartphones than anywhere else in the world, a recent study conducted by mobile data analytics firm, Adjust, said, adding Indonesia showed the most robust growth in the region.

The increase in app downloads in Indonesia was spurred by a boom in the gaming and video streaming space, and app analytics firm App Annie found that Indonesians spent at least four hours on an average consuming entertainment via apps on their phones.

Driving this app-based entertainment consumption is the relatively younger population in Indonesia, and the rise in number of affordable devices which come loaded with smartphone capabilities, the study said.

Singapore was another standout in terms of mobile apps usage, boasting 8.4 million mobile subscriptions, for a population of 5.64 million. But app growth in the market is low.

Gaming was not able to replicate its Indonesian success in Singapore, and neither did entertainment. In fact, the Adjust study found that entertainment apps managed to keep only 2 percent of their new users by day seven, as did e-commerce and utilities apps.

"To achieve growth in Singapore, marketers need to approach users at the exact moment they're ready to shop, and do so increasingly through social channels," the study said.

Vietnam placed at the top in the entertainment category for app downloads, while Myanmar, India, and Japan all placed higher in downloads for utilities apps.

Overall, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Myanmar in Asia Pacific are the most primed for growth in the app-space, the study concluded.

Aparajita Saxena

Former Deputy Associate Editor, Asia Pacific

Aparajita is Former Deputy Associate Editor for Entrepreneur Asia Pacific. She joined Entrepreneur after nearly five years with Reuters, where she chased the Asian and U.S. finance markets.

At Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, she wrote about trends in the Asia Pacific startup ecosystem. She also loves to look for problems startups face in their day-to-day and tries to present ways to deal with those issues via her stories, with inputs from other startups that may have once been in that boat.

Outside of work, she likes spending her time reading books (fiction/non-fiction/back of a shampoo bottle), chasing her two dogs around the house, exploring new wines, solo-travelling, laughing at memes, and losing online multiplayer battle royale games.

 

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