Russian App Market Seeing A Significant Boom

Looking to break into one of the world’s largest app markets? It might just be a good idea to go for Russia. Now the planet’s fifth largest app market after China, India, the USA and Brazil with over 84 million mobile users, Russia is experiencing a boom within the app world.

All the pieces are in place for app developers to make the most of Russia’s emerging app market, and the country’s potential is clear. With more users adopting smartphones every day, and more people joining the web development, engineering and IT industries year on year, targeting the Russian market is a no-brainer.

With just slightly more than half of the population adopting smartphones, why is it that Russia can boast the largest market share growth in the world, and what has caused this boom?

Market domination

Since they both launched in 2008, Apple’s iOS App Store and Google’s Play Store (formerly Android Market) have dominated the world’s app store markets. Though worldwide the two are nearly evenly matched in users, downloads, apps offered and money generated, Android Operating Systems dominate Russia’s markets.

With three times as many downloads as the iOS App Store, Google Play is the app store of choice in Russia; however, the country’s own app store Yandex.Store comes pre-installed on most Russian smartphones, providing that extra competition.

Playing the game

The biggest cause of this influx of app users in Russia is gaming. According to experts, the country is considered the 11th largest gaming marketplace in the world. Back in 2015 alone, gaming apps made up more than 50% of all app downloads in Russia, which brought in roughly 75% of iOS and Google Play’s combined revenue.

This is what makes the Russian market so exciting for foreign app developers. 40% of the 116 mobile games that were released in 2016 alone were developed by international app creators, making it an attractive place to release new games.

In-app purchasing is incredibly successful in Russia as well, and including the opportunity for social sharing has also proved successful for the most popular games.

Getting social

Most people believe that social media has also contributed to this rapid increase in mobile and app users in Russia, with many downloads coming from apps such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Social sharing is also a huge reason why gaming has grown in popularity. With ads leading social media users to a wider variety of games, and games being connected to social channels to share victories with friends, gaming and social networking go hand in hand.