The world’s largest file-sharing, gaming and content streaming application, is growing fast on the continent
The pandemic continues to explode app growth in Africa, with more than 20 million users in South Africa – and 500 million people globally – using SHAREit each month.
SHAREit, the world’s largest file-sharing, gaming and content streaming application, has been once ranked as the No.2 fastest-growing media publisher in Africa in the AppsFlyer’s latest Performance Index a tool for app marketers to see the performance ranking of mobile media sources.
Interestingly, the data was released after the largest quarter of consumer spending in apps on record, a new report from App Annie indicates. AppAnnie says consumers in Q1 2021 spent $32 billion on apps across both iOS and Google Play up 40% year-over-year from Q1 2020. Gaming, meanwhile, drove a majority of the quarter’s spending, as usual, accounting for $22 billion of the spend — $13 billion on iOS (up 30% year-over-year) and $9 billion on Android (up 35%). Gamers downloaded about a billion titles per week, up 15% year-over-year from 2020. The mobile gaming market saw game downloads outpacing overall downloads by 2.5x in 2020 with the report predicting that mobile gaming will reach $120 billion in consumer spending this year, or 1.5x all other gaming formats combined.
SHAREit’s growth in Africa can be attributed to its zero mobile data file-sharing capability, keeping costs to a minimum for those on this continent. It has established itself as a one-stop content platform, providing users with gaming, content discovery and consumption services. The app has a dedicated gaming centre, which offers HTML5 games, gaming videos and an option to download hot games. With games across all genres, it has one of the largest catalogues of mobile games from developers across the globe.
The achievement follows their remarkable performance in Edition XI (covering H1,2020) of the AppsFlyer Performance Index, according to which it ranked at the top in the Middle East and Southeast Asia with an impressive 160% growth rate in the app install pie in H1 2020. The rankings spotlight the app’s unique product offering and a wide array of features that not only make the application popular amongst customers, but also an indispensable resource for marketers.
Karam Malhotra, Partner and Global Vice-President at SHAREit, said: “The power of the user has never been as loud and clear as it is today, as they want choice, flexibility and anytime access to personalized digital content via their mobile phones. Our holistic platform offers a smart and unique blend of content discovery, consumption, gaming and sharing in line with heightened customer expectations as we strive after refining the experience to be useful, convenient and seamless. We’re thrilled to be named the fastest-growing media publisher in the Middle East and Southeast Asia– it’s another testament to our commitment to providing flexibility, autonomy and utility to our users while helping advertisers grow their business leveraging the SHAREit community.”
The app’s primary feature is the peer to peer file transfer, allowing users to share pictures, music, and more, with other devices without using an active internet or Bluetooth connection. Being the first app channel partner of Google Play, it also ensures secure application transfers with Peer-to-Peer Offline App Sharing – letting users share apps via SHAREit, adding them to the user’s Play Library and updating when the device comes back online.
With consistent advances in terms of content, SHAREit has successfully leveraged the popularity of local regional content to establish itself as the hub for short-format videos and has hence seen its user base spike worldwide with growing engagement levels. SHAREit also ranked as a top media publisher in developed markets like Western Europe (rank #3), Eastern Europe (rank #4) and Latin America (rank #5) in its Growth Index, boasting a highly engaged user base of over 1.8 billion users globally in about 200 countries and regions. The application currently has more than 500 million monthly active users globally.
