New Delhi, Dec 12 (IANS): While the number of apps installed by smartphone users in India range from five to 207, the average number of installed apps on a phone is 51, said a new report on Wednesday.

However, people do not use all the apps they install. Most of the people in India use just about 24 apps on their smartphones, according to the research from technology research consulting firm techARC.

The findings of the "techARC DIGIT" report indicate that there are some users who go on installing apps without much of a thinking and understanding.

Such extremely high installation of apps can not only drain the smartphones in several ways and also impact its performance, but can also expose such users to various vulnerabilities that could be acquired by the device through some apps.

By category, the social media apps lead the usage with 76 per cent of the users using them on a daily basis.

Mobile gaming has gained a lot in the recent times. It stood as the second most-used category with 70 per cent of the users playing one or the other game daily on their smartphones.

Nearly half of the users use financial apps that include banking apps as well as wallet apps to perform one or the other financial transaction digitally, the findings showed.

The over-the-top (OTT) entertainment apps which include live TV, video-on-demand (VoD) and other such apps showing video content is also gaining popularity, with 40 per cent of the users watching content on a daily basis, the research, based on opinions of 1,000 users, showed.