The apps Indians love: All about mobile internet usage by age and gender

Gen Z , 25+ find no common ground in app consumption

What Indians aged 18-24 consume on the internet on their mobile phones bears little resemblance to that of people who are over 25.

Even as the 25+ category is mostly happy with the good old stalwarts such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Amazon, for Generation Z, it is Telegram and Flipkart. The divide is so huge that data from App Annie (now named a.i) shows that there is not a single app that straddles both groups.

Figures based on the top apps of 2022 for 18-24 year olds show that in terms of Monthly Active Users (MAU), at number one  is Instagram, followed by Truecaller, Flipkart, content streaming site MX Player, and Telegram. The list of top apps for the over 25s is different. Top is WhatsApp, followed by Facebook, PhonePe, Amazon, and Facebook Messenger.

Note the Facebook contrast. It does not even feature on the top five apps for generation Z.   Even shopping is divided with the older lot choosing Amazon and zoomers preferring Flipkart. The data provides interesting insights for marketing people and advertisers on which platform they need to tap to engage with their different age classification of customers.   

The MAU data for 18-24 years olds  shows a commonality in choice with other markets. For example, Instagram is the top in 11 of the 15 markets for which data is available and this includes the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and France. The ban on TikTok in India has led to a difference in the pecking order for Gen Z. It features among the top five apps in 13 countries (except Hong Kong and India). In the US and some other countries, it comes in at number two. 

In India, none of the top apps are on paid subscriptions and that is one of the few common areas between zoomers and millennials. So while MX Player, whose streaming content is available free (with ads), has caught the fancy of young Indians, Netflix, which is based only on subscription, does not feature on the list for either the young or the over-25s.

 

Yet Netflix is in the top five list in six of the 15 countries, according to the data.  Gender differences also alter how the internet is used on mobile phones. In terms of MAUs among women, the top apps are, in order, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Meesho, Sharechat and the short video site Moj. What the data reveals is the dominance of social media communication and chat sites (three of the top five). Value for money lifestyle products designed for smaller cities and towns has made Meesho hugely popular with women.   Men are predictably more predictable in their habits, sticking safely, in terms of MAU, to good old Facebook, followed by Instagram, Truecaller, PhonePe and Amazon.