Adjust, the mobile measurement company owned by AppLovin, on November 4, 2026 released "Diwali 2026: app trends & mobile growth," a benchmark study that tracks app installs, sessions and session lengths in India across the 2025 festive season and translates the findings into calendar windows for this year's festival, which runs from November 6 to November 10, 2026. According to Adjust, e-commerce app installs in India ran 29% above the 2025 daily average in the two weeks before Diwali 2025, ride sharing installs reached 67% above average during the five festival days, and installs across all apps peaked at 20% above average on October 26, 2025 - four days after the festival ended.

In Short

Adjust looked at how people in India downloaded and used apps around Diwali last year and found that different kinds of apps got busy at different times: shopping apps before the festival, games and ride apps during it, and longer app use after it. That matters to anyone paying for app ads in India, because a campaign that runs only during the five festival days would miss the shopping rush before and the install peak after. The report turns last year's pattern into suggested dates for 2026, though the figures come from a single year and the company sells the tools it recommends.

What Adjust measured

The study covers data from January to December 2025, according to the report. Adjust draws on what it calls "a mix of Adjust's top 5,000 apps and the total dataset of all apps measured by Adjust," with one source covering 45 countries and another covering approximately 250 countries and territories based on the ISO 3166-1 standard. The company states that the data "is based on aggregated, anonymized data from apps tracked by Adjust and may not reflect the entire global app market." Adjust is a mobile measurement partner, which means its data reflects the apps that use its services to attribute installs and track in-app activity, not the Indian app market as a whole.

Seven verticals are tracked: e-commerce and shopping, entertainment, food and drink, gaming, lifestyle, social and travel. Two regions appear throughout - India and a global comparison set. The report does not say whether India is included in the global figures.

Six windows, one baseline

Adjust split the 2025 season into six periods. All but one last 14 days, which, according to the report, means "each contains every weekday twice and the weekday mix stays constant from one period to the next." The company explains why: "weekend effects are strong in shopping and games, and an unbalanced window would produce a day-of-week artifact that could be mistaken for seasonality."

The six periods, as defined by Adjust:

  • Pre-festive baseline, September 6 to 19, 2025: the last two weeks before the sales launch and Navratri.
  • Festive sale season, September 20 to October 3: the GST cut, the start of the Amazon and Flipkart sales on September 22-23, Navratri from September 22 to October 1, and Dussehra on October 2.
  • Diwali build-up, October 4 to 17: the final run-up, including Karva Chauth on October 10.
  • Diwali, October 18 to 22: the five festival days from Dhanteras to Bhai Dooj, with Lakshmi Puja, the main day, on October 20.
  • Post-Diwali, October 23 to November 5: including Chhath Puja on October 27-28 and the Women's Cricket World Cup semi-finals and final on October 29-30 and November 2.
  • After-season, November 6 to 19: the two weeks after the festive calendar ends.

Every period is compared against the same 2025 average. That choice keeps the six windows comparable with each other, but it also means the baseline is a full-year figure that includes the festive season itself. None of the percentages in the report are year-over-year changes. They show how far a given window sat above or below a typical 2025 day.

Installs rose through the festival and peaked after it

India's overall install curve did not follow the festival calendar neatly. According to Adjust, installs across all apps ran 9% above the 2025 average in the pre-festive baseline and 8% above it during the sale season. They then slipped to 2% below average in the build-up, before rising again to 8% above average during Diwali and 6% above average in the post-Diwali fortnight. The after-season closed at 5% below average.

The daily data adds texture. "From Dhanteras, growth climbed day by day to +13% on Bhai Dooj and peaked at +20% four days later, on October 26," the report states. Adjust adds that "in 2025, daily installs stayed above average for eleven days after Bhai Dooj." The build-up low, 9% below average, falls around October 10, the date the report gives for Karva Chauth.

The October 26 figure is the peak of the festival run, not of the whole measured window. The same daily chart shows higher readings earlier in the season: 27% above average around September 12, during what Adjust calls the pre-festive baseline, and 23% around September 28, during the sale season. Adjust's announcement of the report describes the 20% reading as the point at which "app installs in India peaked." Read against the chart, that holds for the weeks around Diwali but not for the full September-to-November period.

Global installs, by contrast, barely moved. The global set sat between 2% above and 2% below average across all six periods, according to the report, with readings of 0.2% during Diwali and 0.6% in the post-Diwali fortnight.

Fewer sessions, but longer ones

Session counts in India moved the other way. According to Adjust, "sessions were above average before the festival, then slipped below it from Diwali onward and kept falling into November." The period figures show India sessions at 4% above average in the pre-festive baseline, 3% above in the sale season and 0.9% above in the build-up, before turning negative: 1% below during Diwali, 3% below post-Diwali and 8% below in the after-season. Global sessions stayed within a percentage point of average throughout.

Yet the time spent per session rose. The all-apps average session length in India went from 20.5 minutes in the pre-festive baseline to 21.7 minutes in the after-season, according to the report, "with the shortest sessions during the festival itself." The daily series dips to 19.87 minutes around Lakshmi Puja and ends the window at 22.06 minutes on November 19. Global session length "barely changed, staying 2 to 4 minutes below India in every period," Adjust states.

Put together, Indian users opened apps less often after the festival but stayed longer when they did. The report explains the shorter festival sessions this way: "puja, family and travel pull attention away from the phone."

A rotation between categories

The central argument of the report is that Diwali does not lift all app categories at once. "Because each category responds to a different trigger, an event of this size doesn't produce a uniform uplift," the report states. "It produces a rotation, with users adopting different apps as their priorities change over the festival."

The vertical install data supports that reading. E-commerce installs peaked at 29% above average in the build-up, then fell back to single digits during the festival. Games installs, which sat below average in the build-up, reached 18% above average during Diwali itself. Travel installs rose to 26% above average in the build-up, eased during the festival and climbed again to 31% above average in the after-season - the highest vertical reading in the India chart. Lifestyle moved in the opposite direction, falling to 16% below average during the festival.

According to Adjust, "global data shows no equivalent rotation in these categories, which points to the festival itself as the driver and not to a wider seasonal trend." In the global chart, games stayed below average in every window, and no category shows the before, during and after sequence seen in India.

Varun Kulkarni, Senior Director, Marketing and Growth at NoBroker.com, is quoted in the report on the timing problem this creates. "Not every category peaks at the same time, even within the same festival. In our experience, some services start seeing the uptick a month before Diwali, while others only pick up in the final week. If you run one festive campaign window across all categories, you'll be too late for some and too early for others. Map the demand curve for each category separately and time your budgets and messaging to match."

Suchit Huria, Sales Lead, India at Adjust, makes a similar point. "Diwali in India demands category-level precision. E-commerce apps begin capturing consumer intent around Navratri, while travel apps see booking surges as Diwali approaches. Home services peak in the weeks before the festival as consumers prepare their homes, and fintech platforms benefit from auspicious days like Dhanteras. Winning in India means understanding each category's demand curve and regional festive nuances, and timing ad spend to match."

Neither home services nor fintech, both named in Huria's quote, appears among the seven verticals the report measures, so those parts of the quote are not backed by data in the study.

E-commerce: installs before, usage after

The e-commerce pattern is the clearest example of installs and usage separating. "Install growth was above +20% on 12 of the 14 build-up days, reaching +51% on October 11, then fell away through the festival and went slightly negative on Lakshmi Puja itself," according to the report. The chart that accompanies the passage labels the October peak at 50%, a one-point difference from the text. Adjust's explanation for the Lakshmi Puja dip: "The main day is spent on puja, family and fireworks, and commercial activity resumes immediately afterwards."

Sessions lagged installs by weeks. E-commerce sessions in India reached 20% above the 2025 average in the post-Diwali period and stayed 17% above it in the after-season, according to the report. In the daily e-commerce series, session growth peaks at 35% in the days after the festival. "Shoppers add apps in the sale weeks, but usage peaks once the festival is over," the report states. Adjust offers two reasons: "With work paused, people browse at leisure and take longer over purchases," and "money and vouchers received during the festival are likely spent afterwards." The second point is framed as a likelihood, not a measured result.

Visits to shopping apps remained short throughout. In the session-length chart, e-commerce and lifestyle sessions sit at roughly seven minutes in every period, against more than 26 minutes for games in the after-season.

The report also cites third-party figures on where festive orders came from. According to Unicommerce data quoted by Adjust, Tier II and III cities generated over 55% of all e-commerce orders in the 2025 festive period, and quick commerce - delivery in minutes from local stores - was the fastest-growing channel, with order volumes up 120% year over year.

Travel: ride sharing and maps

Travel produced the largest single figures in the study. "Ride sharing installs rose through the build-up and peaked at +67% during Diwali - the festival is one of India's busiest travel periods," according to the report. The travel chart shows ride sharing installs at roughly 48% above average in the build-up, 67% during the festival, 30% post-Diwali and 3% in the after-season. Ride sharing sessions reached 41% above average in the build-up and 39% during Diwali.

Maps and navigation followed a different curve. According to Adjust, it "was above average for installs and sessions in every period and was still rising at the end of the window, with installs at +56% in mid-November, while global travel installs stayed in single digits throughout." Maps sessions also reached 56% above average in the after-season.

Travel sessions overall in India ran 10% above average during Diwali, "while global stayed near its yearly average," the report states. Food and drink sessions went the other way, falling to 16% below average during the festival.

These are figures against India's own 2025 average, not year-over-year growth, so they cannot be compared directly with market-wide download counts. PPC Land reported on November 3 that rideshare app downloads dropped 20% in the US in the first nine months of 2026, according to Sensor Tower, with the paid share of downloads rising to 24% from 15%. The two studies measure different things in different markets, but together they show how much of the ride sharing category's install activity is shaped by events and paid media.

Long sessions in games, streaming and religious apps

Games held the longest sessions of any vertical, according to the report, with MMORPG titles at 43 to 46 minutes, strategy at 39 to 40 minutes and action at 37 to 39 minutes. The games average reached 26.75 minutes in the after-season, with a dip during the festival days. Entertainment rose to 24.36 minutes in the after-season. Within entertainment, "OTT/streaming and video climbed from 24.6 minutes pre-festive to 28.8 after-season (+17%)," Adjust states.

Lifestyle presents a mixed picture. "Lifestyle sessions stayed above average in every period even while installs fell during Diwali," the report states, which Adjust reads as a sign that "the active audience is existing users."

The report also includes a figure on religious apps. "In India, religious app sessions ran well above average from the build-up onwards and peaked at +28% in the weeks after Diwali, roughly three times the global lift," according to Adjust. "Installs peaked at +36% after the festival." Religious apps are not one of the seven core verticals, and the report gives no further breakdown.

How the 2025 data becomes 2026 dates

Diwali 2026 starts 19 days later than the 2025 festival: Dhanteras falls on November 6, Choti Diwali on November 7, Lakshmi Puja on November 8, Govardhan Puja on November 9 and Bhai Dooj on November 10, according to the report. The 2026 dates in Adjust's recommendations match the 2025 windows shifted forward by exactly those 19 days (PPC Land calculation).

The resulting guidance, as stated in the report:

  • Installs for most verticals "fell below average in the two weeks before Dhanteras (October 23 - November 5, 2026)," a window Adjust proposes for creative testing, while reserving "a larger budget for the festival itself." E-commerce and travel are named as exceptions. Adjust's tip keeps spend running "through November 21," eleven days after Bhai Dooj.
  • For gaming, Adjust suggests holding spend back "until the festival," with a window from "November 6 to 24."
  • Travel, according to the report, runs "through December 8, when the post-festival travel period ends."
  • The ride sharing window Adjust gives is "between October 23 and November 10, 2026," while maps and navigation "can run through December 8."
  • For lifestyle, where sessions held up while installs fell, Adjust recommends splitting "campaigns into lapsed and current users," with reactivation creative for lapsed users and acquisition creative kept away from people who are already active.

Two practical details stand out. Adjust released the report on November 4, one day before the end of the October 23 to November 5 window it describes for creative testing, and after most of the suggested ride sharing window had already passed. And the vertical chart does not fully match the claim that "most verticals" fell below average in that pre-Dhanteras window: in the 2025 build-up, only games, food and drink, and lifestyle sat below the line, while e-commerce, travel, entertainment and social were above it.

Adjust's own products in the recommendations

Two of the tips point to Adjust products. One recommends sending Diwali ad clicks "to the exact product, offer or voucher page with an Adjust deep link," adding that "Dhanteras and Choti Diwali are short, high-intent days, and every extra tap loses shoppers." The report names TrueLink, the multi-platform deep linking product Adjust launched in September 2024. Another tip says longer sessions in games and entertainment "suggest users have more screen time at home after Diwali" and recommends Adjust CTV AdVision to measure connected TV impact on installs and revenue. The report presents no data on CTV viewing or on deep-link conversion rates during Diwali.

The study also includes a statement from Shraddha Joshi, Director, Marketing at Dhan, an investing app: "Diwali has always been an important period for investing in India. During Muhurat Trading we see first-time investors entering the market alongside existing investors making long-term commitments, driven by the belief that the occasion is auspicious. This Dhanteras we're bringing the same digital-first approach to gold with Dhan's Gold Vault, so investors can buy gold directly through the Dhan app, with transparent pricing and get safe storage in regulated vaults." As with the fintech reference in Huria's quote, the report contains no finance-app data to set against it.

What the data does not establish

Several limits follow from the report's own methodology.

The study covers one festive season. With no 2024 comparison, it cannot show whether the 2025 rotation between categories is a stable pattern or a one-year shape. The 2025 sale season also coincided with the GST cut, which the report lists as part of the festive sale window but does not separate from the Amazon and Flipkart sales or from Navratri. The 2026 recommendations move the whole 2025 calendar by 19 days. The report does not give 2026 dates for the Amazon and Flipkart sales, so it does not address whether this year's sale launch sits in the same position relative to Diwali.

The baseline matters too. Because each period is compared with the full 2025 average, which includes the festive months, a period reading of 0% means "a typical 2025 day," not "a quiet day." And because the dataset mixes Adjust's top 5,000 apps with all apps it measures, the report does not say which figures come from which source. Nor does the report explain the September install spikes that exceed its October 26 peak. Which was the season's real high point?

Festive ad spend context

The report frames the study against the size of India's festive advertising market. "Industry estimates put festive ad spend for 2025 at ₹48,000-51,000 crore, and projections see the 2026 season reaching ₹60,000-62,000 crore," according to Adjust, citing exchange4media for the 2025 estimate and Adgully for the 2026 projection. One crore equals 10 million, so the ranges equal ₹480-510 billion for 2025 and ₹600-620 billion for 2026. The two ranges imply growth of roughly 18% to 29% (PPC Land calculation). "The app data shows when all those campaigns actually find their audience," the report adds.

Why this matters for marketers

Adjust's Diwali study is the latest in a run of regional and vertical benchmark reports from the company that PPC Land has followed through 2026. In February, Adjust's 2026 mobile app report put the rise in gaming cost per install at 30%, to $0.56, and found finance sessions up 21% while finance installs fell 4%. The company followed with a LATAM edition in April showing installs up 13% and finance sessions up 62% in 2025, and an August e-commerce study in which UK and Ireland install costs reached $3.85 while India's cost per install fell 57% to $0.10. In October, Adjust's data showed Turkish shopping app sessions up 4% against 0.3% globally.

That $0.10 figure helps explain the attention on India. Installs there are cheap by global standards, which shifts the question from how many installs a budget can buy to when installs turn into usage. The Diwali study's core finding - that e-commerce installs arrive weeks before e-commerce sessions - speaks directly to that. Measurement firms have been competing on this kind of seasonal benchmark. AppsFlyer's 2026 Performance Index, published on October 28, found ad spend rising on 9 of the top 10 mobile media sources, covering 27.2 billion installs from nearly 25,000 apps.

India's commerce market is drawing larger commitments from the platforms that sell ads into it. Amazon in June put $48 billion into India through 2030, including $13 billion of new AWS investment. In October, Amazon Ads told new Indian sellers to budget around ₹500 a day, while its own ₹15,000 starter budget fell short of that advice over the recommended 45 to 60 days. Mobile ad tech is also consolidating: on November 1, Affle agreed to buy Perion for $420 million at a 34.5% premium.

The timing argument also interacts with how automated bidding systems handle short events. Google's seasonality adjustments for App campaigns, added in 2025, are designed for events of ideally one to seven days, with Google warning that periods over 14 days may reduce performance. Adjust's data describes a festival whose effects stretch across about two months and shift from one vertical to another, which does not map neatly onto a single short adjustment window. Meta's 2025 festive season guide listed Diwali in its seasonal calendar but did not include India among the 14 countries in its research.

The CTV recommendation lands in a category where measurement claims are hard to check. Kochava said in October that CTV comes before search in 96% of installs that touch both channels, without publishing baselines or methods. Adjust's report links longer post-Diwali sessions to "more screen time at home" but, like Kochava's guide, offers no CTV data of its own.

Adjust is a unit of AppLovin, whose second-quarter 2026 revenue grew 53% to $1.92 billion.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Adjust, the Berlin-based mobile measurement company owned by AppLovin, with quotes from Suchit Huria of Adjust, Varun Kulkarni of NoBroker.com and Shraddha Joshi of Dhan.

What: A benchmark report, "Diwali 2026: app trends & mobile growth," based on 2025 data. It finds India e-commerce installs 29% above the 2025 average in the build-up, ride sharing installs 67% above average during the festival, total installs peaking at 20% above average on October 26, 2025, and average session length rising from 20.5 to 21.7 minutes after the festival while session counts fell. Adjust maps these patterns onto 2026 dates and recommends spend windows, two of which involve its own products.

When: Released on November 4, 2026, two days before Diwali 2026 begins on November 6. The data covers September 6 to November 19, 2025, within a January to December 2025 range.

Where: India, with a global comparison set. The dataset mixes Adjust's top 5,000 apps with all apps it measures, drawn from sources covering 45 countries and approximately 250 countries and territories.

Why: India's festive advertising market is estimated at ₹48,000-51,000 crore for 2025 and projected at ₹60,000-62,000 crore for 2026, according to the industry figures Adjust cites. The report argues that a single festive campaign window misses the different peaks of shopping, gaming and travel apps. Its figures cover one season only, include the one-off 2025 GST cut, and are measured against a full-year average rather than the previous year.