In India after lock down mode due to Covid-19 in March, more and more people logged into smartphone applications for everything, ranging from video-calls to studies to gaming and even shopping. New modes to communicate like Houseparty and Zoom saw the biggest spikes in fresh user installs, given their small base. But established large social media platforms like TikTok and mobile game PUBG also witnessed a 50-80% increase in active users between February and March, according to data from US-bas analytics platform Similar Web shared with a news paper.
Monthly downloads of video-calling application Zoom, which is also being used by schools to conduct classes, have increased 17 fold from 500,000 in February to over 8.7 million in March. Gaming and entertainment applications are not far behind either.
Monthly downloads of video-calling application Zoom, which is also being used by schools to conduct classes, have increased 17 fold from 500,000 in February to over 8.7 million in March. Similarly, Houseparty, which is being used friends and family to play games and talk to each other, has seen the number of monthly active users (MAUs) increase about 16 times to 328,000 in the same period. The average time being spent increasing eightfold to 24 minutes, indicating that it is being used multiple times.
Gaming and entertainment applications are not far behind, as everyone has more time on their hands. PUBG — the last man standing in the blockbuster game — has seen MAUs increase by 80% to nearly 19 million. Casual games like Ludo King and Carrom, which many are playing with their families and friends while staying at home, have also increased by 50-75%. Additionally, these games are seeing a more significant increase in downloads as well, indicating that they are getting a lot more new users.Video streaming platform MX Player, which is owned by the publishers of a newspaper, saw a spike of 35% in MAUs.
With all schools conducting classes online, many expect the lock down to achieve what demonetization did for digital payments. All startups in the space, including Byju’s, Toppr and Vedantu, have announced free classes for users, resulting in record fresh sign-ups. Unacademy, an ed-tech startup backed by Facebook, said students spent a record 1 billion minutes on its platform in March with growth ramping up further in April. According to CEO Gaurav Munjal “We saw a significant increase in daily active users to around 500,000 per day, an increase in viewers per week for the Free Live Classes by 150% and also saw a 110% increase in new subscribers, leading to over 1.5 million learners on the platform, since the beginning of March.”
Even the online retail sector,is expected to take a $1-billion hit in sales due to the lock down, are seeing increased user engagement by focusing on just essentials like grocery and infection-control items. But business remains a fraction of the usual size as consumers are searching more for electronics, which accounts for the majority of the online retail business in India.
Even after lock down, industry experts feel that social distancing will remain a longer-term phenomenon that could increase the adoption of these applications by both new and existing users. “The whole digital adoption of services by consumers has been a secular trend for the last 5 years. But the lock down is going to make a step-change and significantly accelerate the trend by 3-5 years,” said Nimisha Jain, MD at Boston Consulting Group and in charge of consumer insights center.
