India is spending more money on apps, led by AI and streaming

In short: People in India are paying for apps more often, and total app spending hit a record level in the second quarter of 2026.

What's going on

India’s mobile app market generated $345 million in consumer spending in Q2 2026, according to a new report from Sensor Tower. That is up 35% compared with the same quarter a year earlier. India has long been the world’s biggest market for app downloads, but it has been harder for app makers to earn money there.

Sensor Tower says the growth is being driven less by games and more by generative AI, streaming, and productivity apps. Generative AI means apps that can create things like text or images from a prompt (like giving instructions to a helpful writing assistant). The report says Indian consumers are becoming more willing to pay for subscriptions, which are monthly or yearly plans.

One reason is easier digital payments. The report points to India’s Unified Payments Interface, also called UPI, which lets people pay directly from their bank accounts, and digital wallets. It is like having a smoother checkout line, so more people finish the purchase.

Sensor Tower also said India’s revenue per download has more than doubled over the past three and a half years, while downloads have stayed around 6.3 billion per quarter since 2023. In Q2, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude made up nearly 83% of India’s AI app revenue, based on Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch.

What to watch

India still earns much less per download than countries like the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. But if digital subscriptions keep becoming normal in India, more global and local app companies may focus on paid features and paid plans made for Indian users.

Source: TechCrunch AI