Times Group, Reliance, Airtel are India’s top app publishers: App Annie

Bengaluru: Times Group*, Reliance Industries, and Airtel have emerged as India's top app publishers, according to App Annie’s latest global app rankings. With 16 publishers, the United States had the most number of top publishers of any country, followed by China with 15.

According to the mobile intelligence firm, the rankings are based on the worldwide combined iOS App Store and Google Play downloads estimates from App Annie Intelligence between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2020.

ShareChat, MeitY's National Informatics Centre, Appyhigh, Dailyhunt, Inshorts, Yuvadance, and Paytm parent One97 Communications also feature in the list.

In terms of games, Ludo King maker Gametion has emerged as the top game publisher for the country. Gametion was the winner in the ‘Bootstrap Champ’ category at ET Startup Awards 2020. The company had shot into prominence during the pandemic, recently surpassing 500 million downloads across the world.

Word Game Studio, Games2win, Moonfrog, Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Group, BlackLight Games, RV AppStudios, Rendered Ideas, Gameberry, and Gunjan Apps Studio are among other game publishers in the list.

"We congratulate these exceptional leaders from across the world," said Theodore Krantz, chief executive officer of App Annie. "With mobile accelerating at an even faster rate than anticipated, publishers must engage with this audience to stay relevant."

Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings Ltd. and NetEase dominated the global rankings based on overall revenue estimates, followed by Playrix, Activision Blizzard, and Zynga. Publishers headquartered in Asia Pacific accounted for more than half of the top fifty-two publishers in 2020, the company said.

*Disclosure: Times Group's digital arm Times Internet owns ETtech