Gadgets
Consumer Spending on Mobile Apps Grew 40 Percent in a Year: App Annie
Market intelligence firm App Annie said in its latest report that the first quarter of 2021 was the biggest for the app market worldwide as it reached the milestone of $32 billion on in-app purchases across App Store and Google Play. This was 40 percent up from the first quarter of 2020.
The firm said that smartphone users spent around $9 billion (roughly Rs. 65,900 crores) more on apps and games in the first quarter over what they did in the same quarter of last year.
In terms of growth on the basis of platforms, App Annie noted in its report that the growth in the first quarter was shared equally by both Android and iOS. “Consumer spend grew 40 percent year-over-year to $21 billion (roughly Rs. 1,53,800 crores) on iOS, and by the same percentage year-over-year to around $11 billion (roughly Rs. 80,600 crores) on Google Play,” it said.
Similar to the growth in consumer spend, total downloads also grew significantly. App Annie said that downloads on App Store and Google Play combined rose by 10 percent to 31 billion in the first quarter.
On Google Play, apps in Games, Social, and Entertainment categories saw the strongest quarter-over-quarter growth in terms of consumer spending. This was a little different from App Store where the largest categories by consumer spend growth were Games, Photo & Video, and Entertainment.
Google Play also saw the biggest downloads’ growth quarter-over-quarter from Social, Tools, and Finance categories. Other top categories on Android’s official app store included Weather (40 percent) and Dating (35 percent).
On App Store, Games, Finance, and Social Networking were the top categories driving the most downloads. The most prominent was, however, Health and Fitness as downloads of apps in that category rose 25 percent quarter-over-quarter. It makes sense as a large number of smartphone users continued to stay at their homes and engaged in fitness activities indoors due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The top apps by downloads, consumer spend, and monthly active users (MAU) across the App Store and Google Play were TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook in the first quarter. App Annie, however, noted that messaging app Signal emerged as the fastest-growing app by downloads and MAUs, whereas Telegram was at number three in downloads and number two in MAUs. This could be due to the recent criticism of WhatsApp over its new privacy policy.
Indian app MX Takatak, a local alternative to TikTok, was also seen as the fastest growing app by downloads in the quarter. But nonetheless, TikTok itself led the top downloads chart, followed by Facebook and Instagram.
TikTok was also the second leading app in terms of consumer spend, though YouTube dominated that front and Tinder came third. On the part of MAUs, Facebook led the market, followed by WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
App Annie in January reported that mobile app downloads reached a milestone of 218 billion in 2020. However, the latest results suggest that we may see even further growth this year.
Gaming continues to lead the app market
Gaming surpassed other categories by hitting $22 billion (roughly Rs. 1,61,300 crores) in the quarter, according to App Annie’s report. Gamers on iOS platform spent the most at $13 billion (roughly Rs. 95,300 crores), up 30 percent year-over-year. However, Android gamers spent $9 billion (roughly Rs. 65,970 crores), up 35 percent.
App Annie said that a billion games were downloaded every week in the first quarter — showing an increase of 15 percent from 2020 and 35 percent from the weekly average recorded in the same quarter of 2019. Google Play downloads grew 20 percent year-over-year to 11 billion.
Supersonic Studio’s casual survival title Join Clash 3D became the most downloaded game of the quarter. It was followed by Among Us and DOP 2: Delete One Part.
On the consumer spend front, Roblox led the market, followed by Genshin Impact, Coin Master, and Pokemon Go. Titles including Among Us, PUBG Mobile, and Candy Crush Saga, however, led the list of games receiving most MAUs in the quarter.
Game downloads on mobile devices outpaced overall downloads by 2.5 times in 2020. But in 2021, App Annie projects that mobile gaming could reach $120 billion (roughly Rs. 8,79,600 crores).
“Mobile gaming strategy — product development, partnerships, international expansion, user acquisition, marketing, monetisation and retention — is more important than ever before, and gaming publishers need to have a clear view of the market and the road ahead,” the firm said.
Gadgets
Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
Gadgets
BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Gadgets
Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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