India: Digital goods purchases account for 38 percent of in-app purchases

On the other hand, purchasing of physical goods, account for 15% of all purchases. According to an InMobi study conducted to measure consumer engagement with mobile messaging apps, Indian smartphone users prefer making in-app purchases priced between INR 71 and INR 129. The study also revealed that 21% (or 1 in 5) mobile internet users in the country have already made an in-app purchase, which includes add-ons like emoticons, games, stickers, and virtual currency among others.

The study revealed social networking and messaging apps (not including SMS/MMS) are the most popular, with 65% and 46% of the users reporting regular usage, respectively. It’s followed by entertainment and news/weather apps, each with 39% usage. App adoption was primarily driven by discovery via the app store and word-of-mouth.

The most preferred method of communication was reported as messaging/chat apps by 44% of the participants, while social networking came in a distant second with only 19% participants voting in its favor. Voice calls (17%), SMS/MMS (10%) and email (10%) accounted for the rest of the participants. Mobile messaging users were an active lot too with 95% of them accessing such apps multiple times in a day. Of the participants, 56% expect to download a messenger/chat app within the next 30 days.

The company says the study was conducted between May and June 2014, and covered 455 smartphone users in the country, of which 55% were Android users and the remaining 45% were iOS users. Mobile usage patterns of users between 18 and 44-years old were tracked, as part of the study.