India's e-commerce boom keeps compounding. A new report from AppsFlyer, the Modern Marketing Cloud, finds the growth story getting more complicated underneath the surface.

Quick commerce has scaled into a $10 billion-plus GMV segment in India, now accounting for roughly 15% of all e-commerce GMV, a bigger share than in any major market except China, according to Redseer. That expansion, layered on top of a Navratri festive season that opened with GMV nearly 3.5 times business-as-usual levels, has pushed India's Shopping app installs and engagement far ahead of the rest of the world. According to AppsFlyer's State of eCommerce for Marketers in India - 2026 Edition, India's Android installs grew 85% over the past two years versus just 2% globally, and its share of global Android Shopping sessions now stands at 71%, the highest of any metric tracked.

The report also flags a warning sign forming underneath that growth. Day 30 retention on Android fell 41% over the last two quarters, after holding essentially flat all year. It dropped in the same window that remarketing spend fell 42%, even as user acquisition spend kept climbing.

"India's install numbers are exceptional by any global measure, and quick commerce is a big part of why. But the bigger opportunity is often with the customer marketers already have. The data shows engagement holding up even as install growth cools," said Sanjay Trisal, General Manager India & ANZ at AppsFlyer. "That's the piece that's easy to under-invest in when acquisition looks this strong. What's missing is the confidence to act on what the data already shows. That's the conversation this report is built to start."

Additional key insights from the State of eCommerce for Marketers in India – 2026 Edition:

• India accounts for 63% of global Android installs in Shopping and 71% of Android sessions among measured markets, its widest lead of any metric tracked
• ● Paid installs overtook organic in absolute volume by Q1 2026, reversing the organic-led pattern that held through most of 2025

• Day 30 retention on Android fell 41% between Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, following a year of flat performance, a steeper decline than the 30% drop seen globally.
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• ● India's fraud rates remain below global benchmarks on both platforms, though Android fraud ticked up 30% quarter over quarter after two years of steady improvement.
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• India's Share of Paying Users on Android grew 18% over the past two years, narrowing the gap with the global benchmark to 11% as of Q1 2026, while its iOS lead over the global figure, 6% as of Q4 2025, has narrowed sharply to just 2% by Q1 2026.
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• Analysis of AI-assistant queries from nearly 400 eCommerce brands worldwide shows 64% of the questions marketers ask focus on UA and remarketing performance, yet retention questions make up just 9%
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AppsFlyer's State of eCommerce for Marketers in India – 2026 Edition is based on fully anonymized and aggregated data, analyzing 2.24 billion installs across 210 apps, $290 million in UA and remarketing ad spend, and 1.63 billion Android remarketing conversions in India's Shopping vertical. All results follow strict volume thresholds and methodologies. Data is presented only when these conditions are met. GMV figures are cited from Redseer; global AI-assistant query data is drawn from AppsFlyer's companion global State of eCommerce for Marketers report.