Key Totals of Russian Mobile Market in 2019

According to the annual report ‘State of Mobile 2020’ by App Annie, Russia became the sixth country in the world by the number of downloaded apps—in 2019, Russians downloaded 5,125M apps, which is 35% more than in 2016. Users all over the world downloaded 204 billion apps, which is 46% more than in 2016. Top 5 are China, India, the USA, Brazil, and Indonesia.

In 2019, Russians spent 2.5 hours daily on mobile apps on average, which is 10% more than from two years ago. Worldwide users spent 3 hours 40 minutes a day on mobile apps on average.

Source: App Annie “ State of Mobile 2020”

In 2019, Russians spent $US 1,060M in apps, having increased their expenses within three years by 155%.

Breakthroughs of the year in Russia

• A share of apps in the Food category has increased tremendously, by 224% in 2019 as compared to 2018.
• TikTok is conquering Russian users—just within a single year, Russians have turned out to spend 860% more time in the app (55 million hours).
• WhatsApp is an absolute frontrunner of 2019 in Russia. The app was downloaded most often, and people spent most of their time there. The second place by the number of downloads in Russia is taken by Sberbank Online and the third one by VK.
• Among mobile games, the leader by the number of downloads is Color Bump 3D, the second place is taken by Brawl Stars, and the third one by Run Race 3D. However, users spent most money in Game of Sultans.
• Among finance apps, Google Pay (payment gateway) is downloaded most often, followed by Nalogi FL (Rus. Personal Taxes) and Tinkoff. Among shopping apps, Russians spent most time in Avito, outcompeted by AliExpress and Wildberries, in 2019.
• In the entertainment category, the first place by the time spent was taken by MX Player (video player), the second by Twitch, the world's leading live streaming platform, with Top 3 closed by ivi.ru, a Russian online cinema.

Non-organic installations in 2019

According to AppsFlyer, the number of non-organic installations of apps in Russia increased by 21% in 2019. This is the largest increase among 10 biggest markets of mobile apps in Central and Eastern Europe for the last year.

Russia is also the largest market in EMEA with almost 500 million non-organic game installations in 2019, but a low cost of media sources (nearly $US 0.45 per installation). As a result, total expenses for engagement of game users in 2019 were 220 million dollars only.

‘The Russian market is also still attractive for international customer thanks to both active audience and a low CPI, Cost per Install. In this regard, market participants will continue investing their budgets into development of mobile apps, and, therefore, the market volume will be growing,’ a member of MyTarget believes.

Influence of COVID-19 on app installations and marketing budgets in Russia

After the number of confirmed cases of infection reached 1,000 per day, President Putin declared a prolongation of the ‘non-working week’ across Russia until April 30. This happened after introduction of strict penal measures for stay-home regime violation.

In this regard, according to AppsFlyer, in early April there was a small increase in the total number of installations and profits. In the entertainment category, non-organic installations of streaming apps increased by 115%, and the profits for the last two weeks by 105%.

Because of quarantine, other categories have also demonstrated an increase of organic installations by 20-30% for the last week (Food Delivery, Education, Casual Games, Health and Fitness, Photo, and Dating).

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