PriceBaba.com is a price comparison website which provides you with local offline prices of mobiles. They recently carried out an interesting survey to find out on which versions of Android are Indian users are consuming. The Indian mobile space has changed a lot in a year’s span considering the amount of smartphones being launched every week. With such affordable smartphones at the disposal of the Indian consumers, the mobile industry is only flourishing benefiting the customer.
The survey was carried out by considering 33 million app downloads as gathered by some of India’s most famous app developers. The participating apps were the popular ones like FreeCharge, BookMyShow, Zomato, IntouchApp, CouponDunia, Gaana, Times of India, Times City and Taxi For Sure. The results were as below:
The infographic above represents that 52% of the Indian users are still on Jellybean which is quite surprising as KitKat is the latest android version. The data signified by Google on its dashboard is somewhat similar where Jelly Bean has the highest share of 48% while KitKat follows with 33%. While, ICS has a share of 4% in the Indians markets, it is 7.8% globally. Although many of the Indian users aren’t on the older android versions, the scene is different globally. Google’s dashboard have shown 9.6% while for Indians it is a mere 1%. The insights shared by the app developers will help you in forming a clear picture.
When asked on the consumption of older versions in India as compared to the consumption globally, here’s what Sarang Lakare, Founder & CEO at Volare Technologies (IntouchApp) said:
“India has caught on the smartphone bandwagon late. So it is natural that older versions of Android are either not being used, or used in the secondary market (lower buying power). People moving to smartphones in the last year or so (which is the BIG jump) are not on Gingerbread. Also, tech savvy people switching from Blackberry are also on post-Gingerbread Androids.”
The survey also mentioned which were the top 3 phones accessing their apps. The findings were as below:
It was a no surprise for us to see Samsung’s Galaxy Grand Duos and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 as the Top 2 phones among the Top 3 as Samsung owns a majority of market share. Motorola’s Moto G (1st Gen) was quite a popular device and managed to grab a position,too. Although, windows phones haven’t caught up much in the Indian market. The app developers expect the Windows platform to grow, too.
Manu, Head of Product & Vrishank, Head of Communications at BookMyShow, commented,
“We have been seeing great numbers on the Android platform, which should not come as a surprise to anyone. What is surprising is that the Windows Phone platform has also shown good download numbers, but lags behind in usage and transaction volumes. And iOS users have been the most engaged ones.”
When approached Annkur Agarwal, the CEO of PriceBaba.com to share his views regarding the changing scenario of this market, here’s what he had to say:
“Android has been growing tremendously In India. Google also introduced the Android One program to acknowledge this growth recently. We find this study of Android versions as a great resource for startups and developers targeting consumers in India. The cost of supporting older Android versions is high and it seems that devs need not do so anymore!”