India’s app downloads rebounded to 25.5 billion in 2025, fueled by AI assistants and microdrama boom

India remains a market of sharp contrasts when it comes to mobile app usage. The country continues to lead the world in total app downloads. Yet it still ranks among the bottom 20 markets globally for consumer spending, according to a new report from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. India was also among the few countries in the global top 10 to record year-over-year download growth in 2025, alongside Pakistan, the report noted.

After total downloads slipped in 2024 to 24.6 billion from 25.9 billion the year before, India saw a rebound in 2025, with app downloads climbing back to 25.5 billion.

User engagement also increased during the year, mainly driven by the growing popularity of AI-powered apps and microdrama platforms. Total time spent across apps rose from 1.13 trillion hours in 2024 to 1.23 trillion hours in 2025, according to the report.

Looking at category-level trends, downloads in social media, social messaging, and security apps declined. In contrast, categories including AI assistants, microdrama apps, video editing tools, social discovery platforms, and food and delivery services recorded growth, the latter benefiting in part from the expansion of ultra-fast grocery delivery offerings.

Short-form drama apps alone added more than 350 million downloads in India, while AI assistant apps grew by 346 million downloads, mirroring broader global trends.

Generative AI apps saw epowerfulmomentum. Indian users downloaded generative AI apps 198 million times in 2024, a figure that surged to 602 million in 2025. One factor behind this growth was the release of new image-generation models by companies such as OpenAI and Google, which significantly boosted demand for AI assistants nationwide.

Another driver was the pricing strategy. Several AI companies began offering their premium plans at no cost to Indian users as part of efforts to expand market share rapidly.

ChatGPT ranked as the most-downloaded generative AI app in India, followed by Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok. OpenAI’s assistant also climbed the overall app download rankings, finishing just behind Instagram.

Microdrama emerged as another fast-growing category in 2025, both globally and within India. Platforms such as Kuku TV, Story TV, QuickTV, and DashReels ranked first, third, fifth, and eighth, respectively, in the video streaming category.

Kuku TV, whose parent company raised $85 million in a Series C funding round last fall led by Granite Asia, also secured the fourth spot globally in the video streaming category. In November, Manohar Charan told CNBC that more than 40 million users were consuming microdrama content on ShareChat’s Quick TV platform. Industry observers have already projected that India’s microdrama market could grow to tens of billions of dollars by 2030.

One clear signal of the category’s rapid rise was that after the third quarter of last year, downloads of short drama apps in India surpassed those of OTT streaming services such as Netflix and JioHotstar.

At the same time, India’s domestic app ecosystem showed signs of strengthening. The share of total downloads attributed to local developers increased from 33.91% to 36.52%. However, this growth appears to be primarily driven by higher adoption of apps related to quick commerce, government services, and financial tools rather than entertainment products, as the share of in-app purchase revenue generated by domestic publishers remained unchanged.