WhatsApp had 55 million downloads in India in the past 12 months, making it the number 1 in the country with 35-percent market share.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the largest instant messaging services in India followed by Hike.

India also ranks among the top three markets in terms of app download for internet companies such as Amazon, Uber, Candy Crush, LinkedIn and Facebook, according to Morgan Stanley.

US accounted for the largest share for all these companies. India or Brazil filled in the Number 2 position for each of them. Twitter ranked 5th in India in terms of app downloads. The top three slots for Twitter were taken by the US, Brazil and Japan.

India has emerged as a key market for some of the global Net companies even though it is yet to make the cut to the top league in terms of revenue contributions, says the study.

The top investment banker reached the conclusion based on app downloads in India over the past 12 months for the offerings from these global internet giants. The study also says the country has quite a few commonalities with Brazil.

“Tracking the Brazilian internet market closely could raise some interesting insights on the Indian market, as both countries seem to have common traits and are in the same growth cycle,” says the study.

But the study finds the monetisation levels to be low in India.

While India accounted for 13 percent of the app downloads for Candy Crush, it only accounted for 0.2 percent of its revenues. On the other hand, while the US accounted for 14.4 percent of app downloads, it generated 61.4 percent of revenue for Candy Crush.”

India had over one billion subscribers of mobile phone services and 140 million for broadband in both wireless and wireline modes as on January 31 this year, IANS reported.