As Google Play completes a decade in India, the country is going from an app consumption economy to an app development economy, Swamy told ET in an interview.
This is going to be a fundamental shift as India becomes “the hotbed of innovation and tech development”, he said.
Google Play sees more than 2.5 billion people in over 190 countries using it every month and works with more than two million developers globally. India is becoming increasingly important for Google because of its market potential but also its rich developer base.
“Apps and developers will play an important role in further enabling India’s progression to a truly digital economy. They will also play a significant role in driving economic growth and jobs,” Swamy said. “There is so much diversity now in app development. We are seeing founders and app developers, not just from metros, but a lot of tier 2 and tier 3 cities as well. We’re also seeing more women founding companies or cofounders, or in leadership positions.”
Among the non-metros, he said Play is seeing a lot of traction from places like Lucknow and Coimbatore, and a lot of momentum in Kerala and Gujarat, too.
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One in three developers who are part of its Appscale Academy are not from metros, he said.
Since its launch in 2018, Play Academy has trained more than 80,000 developers in India. It has trained more developers in India than any other country.
Swamy said Indian apps and games saw a 200% increase in active monthly users on Play in India in 2021 compared to 2019.
These apps and games also saw a 150% increase in time spent by users outside India in 2021 compared to 2019. Further, there was an 80% growth in consumer spend in 2021 vs 2019 on Play for Indian apps and games, he said.
A lot of ‘born in India’ verticals are emerging on Play, Swamy said. Traditional categories of Play have always been games and entertainment but in India, he said there’s the emergence of new verticals like education, healthcare, mental health and agriculture, which are enabling a more vibrant place for businesses and developers to thrive.
“We’re seeing a lot of new trends emerge out of India, both in the developer world as well as in the verticals in which they’re making apps,” Swamy explained. “One very inspiring trend is that many developers building in India today are building for the globe. They believe that India is their primary market where they start with, but they’re not limited by India.”
He said Google Play Protect scans over 125 billion apps per day to keep people safe from malware and unwanted software.
Globally in 2021, a total of 1.2 million policy violating apps were blocked from being published, 190,000 bad accounts were banned, and around 500,000 developer accounts that were inactive or abandoned were closed on Play.
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