Economic Times : Business News

Review by eFreeware

Indian market news rarely waits for a convenient moment. A policy announcement, a quarterly result or a sharp move in the Nifty can change how a holding looks before you have had time to sit down with a newspaper or a desktop terminal. That gap between the news breaking and your finding it is the problem the Economic Times app sets out to close.

It is published by Times Internet Limited (TIL), the same group behind the Economic Times newspaper, and it has been on Android for a long time: the first release dates to November 25, 2011. The app is free to download, carries ads and offers in-app purchases, and it has been installed more than 10 million times. Its 4.6 average across 271,108 ratings suggests a large audience that keeps coming back.

What the developer promises is breadth: business and market news as it happens, a full range of categories, and market data that goes well beyond a headline feed. The most recent update, dated September 26, 2026, added screeners, brokerage recommendations and a redesigned Stock Report Plus. I'll take the app's own account of what it does and weigh how useful that sounds for the readers most likely to install it.

Who tends to keep this app installed

The core audience is anyone who follows Indian equities closely enough to want the news and the numbers in the same place. That includes people tracking Sensex and Nifty levels through the trading day, readers who hold stocks through a broker and want to check how a piece of news lands on their positions, and anyone who follows business coverage more generally than the market pages alone.

The category list is broad enough to pull in readers with narrower interests. Alongside market and stock news, the app covers personal finance, technology, economy, opinion, features and environment stories, plus news organized by industry. Someone who mainly wants personal finance ideas and only occasionally checks index levels would find enough here to justify the install, though the market side is clearly the center of gravity.

It also fits readers who want to catch up in gaps rather than sit down for a long read. Offline reading lets you sync stories while you have a signal and read them later, and home screen widgets keep information visible even when the app is closed. Those two features point to a use pattern built around short, frequent check-ins rather than long sessions.

News coverage and how it reaches you

The app's news operation is built around live updates. Top stories from India and abroad sit alongside news by industry, market and stock market news, personal finance, technology, business, opinion, features and environment coverage. The developer describes the market reporting as unrivaled, which is the kind of claim every news publisher makes; what matters more is that the categories are specific enough to follow a sector or a theme rather than a single undifferentiated feed.

Breaking news arrives through push notifications, so you can be told about an event without opening the app. Inside the app, a ticker runs while you browse, which keeps the latest headlines in view as you move between sections. Slideshows add a visual layer across genres including auto, advertising and marketing, entrepreneurship, corporate and industry, consumer and legal, economy, entertainment, events and stock market coverage.

You can pass stories on through email, SMS or social networks. Offline reading is the feature I would value most on a phone: sync the stories you want while you have a connection, then read them when you don't. Together these features describe an app designed to be checked often and briefly, with the option to save longer pieces for later.

Market data, watchlists and the portfolio tool

The data side is where this app separates itself from a general news reader. It tracks the main Indian exchanges and indices, among them BSE, NSE, Sensex, Nifty, Bank Nifty and BSE Mid Cap, and also covers commodities and currencies, with NCDEX and MCX named. Mutual funds, companies, shares, gainers, losers and movers round out the picture. For a reader who wants to know not just what happened but how the market reacted, that combination is the point.

A watchlist keeps an eye on chosen stocks and indices, plus the day's gainers, losers and movers. ET Portfolio goes further, giving you a place to manage and track your investments on the go, which turns the app from a reading tool into something closer to a lightweight position monitor. The recent update added a Markets Dashboard for finding trending stocks and Screeners with pre-created and custom filters, so you can narrow the market down to stocks matching criteria you set.

The same update introduced Recos, which surfaces stock recommendations from various brokerages, and a redesigned Stock Report Plus. The developer says the redesign uses stock scores, upside potential and analyst ratings to help identify stocks, and describes the research as unbiased and comprehensive, with peer analysis. Those are the developer's characterizations rather than neutral descriptions, and I would treat any stock score or recommendation as one input among several rather than a conclusion.

What the app costs and what comes with it

The Economic Times app is free to download. It contains ads and it offers in-app purchases.

If you dislike ads in a news reader on principle, that preference is worth weighing before you install rather than after.

Readers who want a completely clean reading surface will find that this is not the shape of the product, while readers who accept ads in exchange for a free, wide-ranging business news app will not be surprised by what they get.

How it compares with the alternatives

The closest alternatives fall into two groups. The first is general news apps and aggregators, which cover business among many other topics but rarely carry exchange-level market data, watchlists or a portfolio view. The second is dedicated market and brokerage apps, which are strong on quotes and positions but thinner on the broader business, economy and personal finance reporting that gives those numbers context.

This app sits between the two. It is not a trading terminal, and it does not try to be one. Nor is it a general-interest news app that happens to have a business section. Its identity is business and market coverage for Indian readers, and the recent additions of screeners and brokerage recommendations push it a little further toward the market-tools end of that spectrum.

That positioning is what makes the choice relatively simple. If your interest in markets is occasional and you mainly want headlines, a general news app may cover enough. If your interest is constant and you want the reporting and the market data in one place, this app's combination is harder to match without installing two separate products.

A business reader's daily companion

The Economic Times app is a free, ad-supported business and market news reader from Times Internet Limited, with in-app purchases and more than 10 million installs behind it. Its strengths are the breadth of its categories, the depth of its market data across BSE, NSE, Sensex and Nifty, and the practical extras: watchlists, ET Portfolio, screeners, widgets, push alerts and offline reading. The 4.6 average from 271,108 ratings reflects a large, established audience.

I would point it at readers who follow Indian business and markets regularly and want news, quotes and a portfolio view in one app on their phone. Someone who wants only occasional headlines, or who objects to ads in a news reader, has less reason to install it. For everyone in between, the mix of reporting and market tools is the argument, and it is a reasonably strong one.

What's new in version 5.6.6

- Discover trending stocks effortlessly using the Markets Dashboard - Access stock recommendations from various brokerages through the Recos feature - Find stocks matching your criteria with pre-created and custom filters in Screeners Stock Report Plus is now redesigned to cater to your investment needs. - Now identify the right stocks by leveraging stock scores, upside potential, and Analyst ratings. - Get In-depth comprehensive and peer analysis from unbiased research.