Built in India, Scaled Worldwide: The New Growth Path for Apps and Games

Story Highlights

• India’s huge mobile audience gives local studios a strong foundation, but global markets offer greater revenue potential.
• Video-first advertising is becoming increasingly important for reaching users across overseas markets.
• Casual games, utility apps, AI tools, and short-form entertainment are among the strongest categories for global expansion.

India is one of the world’s strongest mobile-first markets. Its game and app ecosystem has produced studios, developers, publishers, creative teams, and growth marketers capable of building products for massive audiences.

But for many Indian Game/App studios, the next stage of growth may not come from more domestic volume alone. It may come from overseas markets.

1. India Builds for Scale, Global Markets Unlock Revenue

India is the biggest mobile market in the world by volume.

In 2025, India had 25.5 billion app downloads, while the United States had 12.6 billion. Indian users also spend more time in apps than users in any other country.

However, the advertising opportunity sits outside the domestic market. Now look at the money.

India earned about $1 billion in app revenue in 2025. The United States earned about $60 billion, with half the downloads.

That gap reveals a critical point for Indian publishers: India is a powerful launchpad, but global markets are where stronger monetization, higher-value users, and long-term revenue growth can be unlocked.

According to Sensor Tower’s data, India leads the world in app downloads. But for IAP-focused studios, the biggest revenue opportunities are in high-spending markets such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, UK… India is a strong launchpad, but global expansion unlocks higher-value users and greater growth.

This shift creates a new opening for Indian studios.

A game developed in India can reach users in the US. A utility app built by an Indian team can acquire users in Europe. A short drama or entertainment app can test audiences in Southeast Asia, MENA, or among Indian users living overseas.

The limitation is local. The opportunity is global.

2. Video-First Platforms Are Becoming the New Growth Layer for Apps and Games

Static image ads are losing ground, while video now accounts for more than half of global app ad impressions. This signals a clear shift in user acquisition: advertisers are moving toward platforms built around short-form video, creator-style content, and interactive discovery.

For Indian mobile app advertisers, this matters because global users are no longer responding only to traditional ad formats. They engage faster when they can see the product, understand the value, and experience the story within seconds.

The takeaway is simple: overseas growth is no longer just about entering new markets. It is about choosing acquisition platforms that match how global users now discover, evaluate, and engage with apps.

The upside of execution is just as important. One strong video-first concept can be adapted across multiple ad platforms and markets, giving Indian advertisers more creative mileage, faster testing cycles, and better scaling efficiency without multiplying production costs.

3. Market Demand: Where Indian Studios Already Have Strength

Indian Game/App publishers are not starting from zero. Many are already building evergreen products that match global user demand.

Several high-potential categories are especially relevant for video-first, discovery-led growth:

Casual, Puzzle, and Simulation Games

These genres are highly suitable for short-form creative testing because they are easy to understand within seconds. A strong gameplay hook, fail moment, challenge mechanic, or satisfying completion scene can quickly attract attention and drive installs. These games also tend to travel well across markets because the core value is visual, simple, and highly repeatable.

Utility, AI, Productivity, Photo, and Video Apps

Global users are actively looking for tools that solve daily problems, improve productivity, support content creation, or enhance digital experiences. These apps can perform well when the creative clearly shows the user problem, the product use case, and the result in a short, easy-to-understand format.

Non-games are where money is moving fastest. That is favourable for a market with India’s tooling and engineering depth.

Entertainment and Short-form Content Apps

Short drama, vertical series, and entertainment products are increasingly aligned with how global users consume content today: quick attention, emotional hooks, repeat viewing, and mobile-first storytelling. For Indian publishers, this creates a strong opportunity to turn creative production strengths into overseas audience growth.

There is also a live proof point. Pocket FM, founded in Bangalore in 2018, pivoted to the US in late 2022. By FY2024, it reported $127.05 million in global revenue, up 496% year over year, with more than $100 million of annualized revenue from the US alone and roughly 70% of total revenue coming from international markets.

India has strong creative production capability, a large base of mobile-first publishers, and years of experience building cost-efficient products for mass audiences at scale.

The question is no longer whether Indian studios can build for global markets. Many already do.

The bigger question is whether they have the right channel, setup, and growth system to scale.

4. Market Potential Breakdown: What Global Markets Are Actually Worth

Global mobile in-app spend reached $167 billion in 2025, up 10% year-over-year. Games accounted for more than $81.8 billion. Non-games passed $85.6 billion.

That’s the pie. The question for an Indian studio is which slice is reachable, and the answer is more promising than most teams assume.

The structural opening: most app money crosses a border

Based on Sensor Tower’s latest analytics, India shows strong domestic traction in apps, but a clear gap in games and monetization.

In 2025, Indian publishers captured around 40 – 45% of domestic app downloads, showing solid local user reach. However, their share of domestic app IAP revenue was only around 8 – 10%. This means Indian app publishers are driving downloads, but still capturing a much smaller share of revenue.

The gap is even wider in games. Indian publishers accounted for only around 2–3% of domestic game downloads, while their share of game IAP revenue remained minimal. Compared with markets like China, Japan, South Korea, and the US, where domestic publishers capture a much stronger share of game downloads and revenue, India still has significant room to grow.

Read that again: India is one of the world’s largest mobile markets by downloads, yet domestic publishers capture less than 30% of market downloads. This shows a clear growth gap: Indian studios have strong local potential, but there is still major room to expand their reach, both domestically and globally.

The market that pays

Twenty countries hold most of the world’s app revenue. India is not one of them.

The United States remained the largest mobile market by revenue in 2025, with consumers spending nearly $60 billion. Western Europe is the fastest-growing large region: the UK and Germany each added around 50% since 2023, and France grew close to 86%, well ahead of the US at 23%.

For Indian Game/App studios focused on IAP, subscriptions, or hybrid monetization, these markets represent stronger potential for higher-value users, better LTV, and more sustainable revenue growth.

5. Growth Requires More Than Market Entry

Global scaling should not start with country targeting picked from a dropdown. It starts with research, competitor analysis, creative localization, budget planning, and structured testing.

A strong market strategy answers:

• Which countries fit the product?
• Which audiences are most likely to monetize?
• Should the studio target global users, Indian audiences abroad, or both?
• Which languages and creative variants are required?
• Which countries get tested first, and against what success threshold?
• What budget does the learning phase need before optimization is meaningful?

Mapping category to market:

• Casual games: test Southeast Asia, LATAM, and MENA, then move winners to Tier 1
• Puzzle games: broad global audiences, lighter localization requirements
• Utility and AI apps: market-specific use cases and localized creative are mandatory, not optional
• Short drama and entertainment: language, cultural, and content localization determine which markets you can earn in at all
• IAP-driven games: validate cheaply, but monetization testing has to happen in high-purchase-power markets or the data misleads you

One budgeting note. Test-phase spend needs to be large enough to exit the learning phase in each market and platform combination, or you’re paying for noise. Plan per-geo, per-OS budgets, rather than one blended pool.

6. The Right Toolkit for Overseas Growth

The global opportunity is large, but it cannot be captured through ambition alone. Indian studios need the right toolkit to enter, test, and scale overseas markets effectively, including:

• Advertising account setup for target markets
• Valid payment and billing workflows
• Market research and competitor intelligence
• Policy and compliance review
• MMP tracking for installs, events, revenue, retention, and ROAS
• Campaign structure and optimization process
• Creative strategy, creative production, and localization
• Tools and workflows to improve scaling efficiency

Start More Confidently With a Free Consultation

Indian Game/App studios already have what many global markets are looking for: strong products, fast execution, mobile-first thinking, and the ability to build at scale.

The real question is no longer whether Indian studios can go global. Many already can. The harder question is how to scale smarter: choosing the right markets, using new ad solutions from fast-growing video-first platforms, and reaching users in the environments where app discovery now happens naturally.

That is the conversation Ecomdy Global Gaming wants to open in this webinar: “Ads for App Growth.” We will look at global expansion from the Indian publisher’s perspective: where the revenue potential is, what needs to be prepared before launch, and how studios can turn product strength into stronger overseas user acquisition.

If interested, you can register here. If you are serious about scaling games and apps beyond local markets, improving user acquisition efficiency, and staying ahead in the fast-moving mobile growth landscape, this session is a practical starting point for your next growth plan.

Collaboration Note

GamingonPhone occasionally partners with developers, publishers, and other industry organizations for specially commissioned articles that align with our editorial standards and the interest of the readers. If you want to know how we can work together, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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