Four in 5 Indians prefer apps over browser: Study

A vast majority of Indian consumers (83 per cent) have a strong preference for using mobile apps over mobile browsers while interacting with a company, an Adobe study said.

The study “2019 Mobile Marketing Research—India Market” revealed that more than half of adults surveyed regularly use voice commands.

“I’m not that dextrous with my fingers; and to be frank… I’m just too lazy to type,” said Nidhi, a 26-year-old lawyer, who prefers communicating via voice notes on WhatsApp.

"Considering the fast consumer adoption of voice tech, we expect to start seeing more brands experimenting with immersive ways of customer engagement over the next few years," said Sunder Madakshira, Head, Marketing, Adobe India.

The Indian consumer is going mobile: be it video calling (88 per cent), checking social media (85 per cent) or texting (89 per cent).

Three in four adult consumers in India constantly use more than one device simultaneously and spend almost 90 per cent of their workday interacting with devices.

Interestingly, switching screens is common in India—more so among male millennials—with 50 per cent of consumers starting an activity on mobile and then switching to a computer, the research showed.

Two out of five people said that it would be a “major hassle” if their smartphone was taken away for a couple of weeks; one-third respondents claimed they could not live without their smartphones.

This reaction was more pronounced among millennial consumers, said the study.

Even for shopping, smartphones are the most preferred medium. The study, based on a survey of 1,000 adult consumers in India, found that nine out of 10 respondents said that they conduct all their retail-related activity on mobile.