AKIPRESS.COM - India is rapidly moving into the mobile app age and is already the fourth-largest mobile app economy. The amount of time Indians spend on apps has also increased dramatically, says mobile-app analytics company App Annie.

In total app downloads per year, only China, US, and Brazil are ahead of India. The annual figure for India is projected to grow by 92% to reach 7.7 billion downloads this year, and further to 20.1 billion by 2020.

The amount of time Indians spent on apps in the first quarter of 2016 more than doubled compared to that in the first quarter of 2014. In retail apps, the time spent grew by 11.5 times during the same period, driven by e-commerce majors like Flipkart-Myntra , Amazon, and Snapdeal. The time spent on video streaming apps grew by 7.4 times, with YouTube and Hotstar leading the way.

App Annie finds that over 25% of Android users in India use at least one ride-sharing app (those like Ola and Uber). This figure was the highest among all countries - in the US, UK, and Brazil, it is below 20%.

In retail, e-tailing firms, who tend to have a mobile-first approach, led the way, quite a contrast to mature markets where brick-and- mortar and web-first players still have a big share. Flipkart was ahead of Amazon in India in terms of monthly active Android users in Q1 of 2016. However, in terms of app downloads in both Google and iOS app store, Amazon took the top slot for the same period. Asia Pacific is the biggest region in the global app economy, accounting for 50% of total global app downloads, Times of India reports.