Laughing with tears of joy most-used emoji in India

New Delhi, July 16 (IANS): Love laughing with tears of joy and blowing kisses with your emoticons? Well, so do most Indians on various social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and dating apps, a new report said on Tuesday.

The report by tech company Bobble AI, launched ahead of World Emoji Day on Wednesday, places the “tears of joy” and “blowing a kiss” emoji faces as the top two used in smartphone conversations.

Other emojis in the top 10 for WhatsApp are: smiling face with heart eyes, kiss mark, OK hand, loudly crying face, beaming face with smiling eyes, thumbs-up, folded hands and smiling face with sunglasses.

The emojis are almost similar for WhatsApp. The report said emoji usage is elevated considerably during festivals and national events.

For online dating apps, a winking face and a face savouring food are widely used as well.

“Emojis used in conversations on dating apps tend to express joy, be more flirty and romantic. Clinking Beer Mugs, Couple With Heart and Kiss Mark,” the report claimed.

For “sexting”, the top three are the tongue, fire and kiss emojis.

“Emojis have wormed their way into our digital culture and our way of communicating with each other. The trend highlights a lot of positivity and varied emotions like laughter, joy and romance,” Bobble AI co-founder Anit Prasad told IANS.

According to the data gathered from the year 2018 till now, there has been approximately 36 per cent increase in emoji sharing across social media platforms via Bobble Indic keyboard. The app has registered more than 25 million users till date.

Tier 2 and 3 cities make for Bobble’s 66 per cent user base and Tier 1 cities, 34 per cent.