Mobile apps have changed the way we lived our lives, whether we want to admit it or not. We’re not just talking about being addicted to mobile games. We’re talking about using different mobile apps for different parts of our lives. We have mobile apps to communicate with one another, mobile apps to order food from or do groceries with, and even mobile apps to help us with our banking and bills.
With our complete reliance on apps, it’s come as no surprise that the mobile app industry is a billion dollar industry, but just how big is the industry? What are the number for mobile app downloads telling us?
How much is the mobile app revenue per platform? We’ll find out the answer to those questions and more.
Key App Revenue Statistics
- Mobile app users are spending $380 on in app purchases [1].
- More than five million apps are spread out over the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and Amazon App Store [2].
- China remains as the leading market of consumer spending for mobile apps in 2021, generating $56.21 billion in revenue through app spending [3].
- United States follows after China in consumer spending the same year of observance with $43.03 billion [3].
- iOS users had the highest consumer spending within the Apple App Store for 2021 and 2022, with $85 billion and $92 billion respectively [4].
- Consumer spending for Apple App Store is expected to reach $161 billion by 2026 [4].
- Google Play Store’s consumer spending for the same year of observance was at $47 billion and $45 billion respectively [4].
- Google Play Store consumer spending is projected to reach $72 billion by 2026 [4].
- Apple’s global revenue was $365.31 billion in 2021 [13].
- Mobile app gaming revenue on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store was $98.22 billion in 2021. It’s expected to reach $103.5 billion by the end of 2022 [6].
Mobile App Revenue Statistics
- China is the leading market for mobile apps consumer spending in 2021, accumulating $56.21 billion in app spending [3].
- The United States follows in mobile app consumer spending with $43.03 billion that same year [3].
- In 2021 and 2022, Apple App Store had the highest consumer spending at $85 billion and $92 billion respectively. It’s projected they will hit $161 billion in consumer spending by 2026 [4].
- Likewise, Google Play Store recorded consumer spending for the same year of observance at $47 billion and $45 billion. It’s projected they will hit $72 billion in consumer spending by 2026 [4].
- As of January 2022, WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform in terms of monthly active users. WhatsApp recorded 2 billion users on a monthly basis [5].
- WeiXin/WeChat follows in second place for most popular messaging platform with 1.2 billion monthly active users [5].
- Mobile app gaming revenue on both platforms (Google Play Store and Apple App Store) was $98.22 billion in 2021. It’s estimated to reach $103.5 billion in 2022 [6].
How Much Did Apple App Store Generate In Mobile App Revenues?
- Tinder is the leading iPhone App in terms of revenue in June 2022. The app earned $38.4 million for the month of June 2022 [7].
- TikTok comes in second place with $28.72 million and Pokemon Go with $25.71 million [7].
- As of 2022, the total number of gaming apps available on the Apple App Store is 288,153 [8].
- The average price of both iOS games and apps is $0.88 as of November 2021.
- 93.1% of all apps in the Apple App Store are Free Apps [9].
- Only 6.3% of all the apps in the Apple App Store are Paid Apps [9].
- The global revenue of the Apple App Store for the first half of 2021 and first half of 2022 was at $41.4 billion and $43.7 billion respectively [10].
- For the years 2019, 2020, and 2021, the global revenue for the Apple App Store were $55.5 billion, $72.3 billion, and $85.3 billion [11].
- Gaming apps has the highest download share amongst other apps from 2020 to 2021. Gaming apps will still remain the highest download share for the year of 2022 [12].
- Apple’s global revenue worldwide is $365.82 billion as of 2021 [13].
Apple continues to be the face of innovation, and it shows in their tremendous growth over the last ten years. Between the Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches, each product line has their own dynasty and enjoying their individual successes. Their share price has increased tenfold and became the first trillion-dollar company (in market capitalization) [14].
How Much Did Google Play Store Generate For Mobile App Revenues?
- As of Q1 2022, there are 449,497 gaming apps in the Google Play Store [15].
- As of June 2022, the top grossing apps in terms of revenue are Coin Master, Diablo Immortal, and TikTok. Their revenue for that month were $26.71 million, $26.17 million, and $23.5 million respectively [16].
- There are 2.65 million apps available in the Google Play Store as of March 2022 [17].
- Much like Apple App Store, gaming apps have the highest download share in the Google Play Store, maintaining at least above 40% download share amongst other apps in the store [18].
- Google Play Store’s annual revenue for 2021 was $47.9 billion. In 2020, it was $38.8 billion [19].
- In June 2021, Google Meet was the most popular app on Android in terms of download. The app generated 16.31 million downloads for the month. Google Play Games came in second place with 12.82 million times for the same month.
All About The Google Play Store Ecosystem
The Google Play Store was launched in March 2016 and became the major app distributor for Android users around the world, as well as being one of the most important mobile app stores in the mobile app industry.
Much like the Apple App Store, you’ll find several app categories ranging from gaming to office productivity to social media and communications.
Free Vs Paid App Downloads
- Amongst three different platforms, the distribution of free and paid apps as of June 2022 are [21], [22], [23]:
- 93.9% free apps; 6.1% paid apps in the Apple App Store
- 96.8% free apps; 3.2% paid apps in the Google Play Store
- 82.2% free apps; 17.8% paid apps in the Amazon Appstore
- As of Sept 2021, 3.7% of apps found on the Google Play Store require an upfront payment before you can download or use the app, while Apple has 6% of apps that require an upfront payment [24].
- During the same time of observance, only 12.5% of apps in the Apple App Store have in app purchases or subscriptions as part of their revenue generation business model. In contrast, Google Play Store has 6.6% of apps with in app purchases and subscriptions [24].
- Global revenue of mobile apps reached $318 billion in 2020, which was more than an $60 billion increase compared to 2019. The strongest segment was the mobile games segment, generating $200 billion in revenue, followed by social media apps with $31 billion in revenue [25].
In 2020, global revenue from mobile apps increased to over 318 billion U.S. dollars. This was an increase of over 60 billion U.S. dollars compared to 2019. The strongest segment that year was the mobile games segment with a revenue of over 200 billion U.S. dollars, followed by social networking mobile apps, which created a revenue of around 31 billion dollars. The Statista Digital Market Outlook estimates that revenue across most segments will increase over the next few years and overall will reach around 613 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.
A Talk About App Monetization Strategies
You might be wondering: how are free apps generating revenue when they give people free access to the apps? Well, the term that comes to mind here is FREEMIUM apps, or you need to pay a premium fee when you want to access certain content or features of a free app.
These fees can come in the form of monthly subscriptions or through a one-time fee. Most apps also offer a lifetime subscription.
Advertising within mobile apps is also one way of monetizing free apps. If you’ve ever downloaded a game or any kind of app, then you’ll know all about the annoying pop-up ads or banner ads that show up out of nowhere. Most of these ads are commonly found in gaming apps, but as long as there are free apps in the mobile app market, you’ll always see an ad or two.
Some developers also include what they call an ad-free experience as part of their perks or benefits of paying an upfront fee. Again, this is common within the mobile app market, but you’re not exactly just paying to get rid of the ads.
Reference
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-apps-see-download-in-app-purchase-user-growth-globally-says-app-annie/
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294605/global-mobile-app-spend-consumer-by-region/
[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/747489/annual-consumer-spend-mobile-app-by-store/
[5] https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-global-mobile-messenger-apps/
[6] https://www.statista.com/statistics/511639/global-mobile-game-app-revenue/
[7] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271103/top-iphone-apps-worldwide-by-revenue/
[8] https://www.statista.com/statistics/780238/number-of-available-gaming-apps-in-the-apple-app-store-quarter/
[9] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1020996/distribution-of-free-and-paid-ios-apps/
[10] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1322849/app-stores-global-revenues-first-half/
[11] https://www.statista.com/statistics/296226/annual-apple-app-store-revenue/
[12] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1322605/apple-app-store-downloads-share-by-category/
[13] https://www.statista.com/statistics/265125/total-net-sales-of-apple-since-2004/
[14] https://www.statista.com/statistics/216657/market-capitalization-of-us-tech-and-internet-companies/
[15] https://www.statista.com/statistics/780229/number-of-available-gaming-apps-in-the-google-play-store-quarter/
[16] https://www.statista.com/statistics/271674/top-apps-in-google-play-by-revenue/
[17] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266210/number-of-available-applications-in-the-google-play-store/
[18] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1322595/google-play-app-downloads-share-by-category/
[19] https://www.statista.com/statistics/444476/google-play-annual-revenue/
[20] https://www.statista.com/statistics/248959/top-global-google-app-downloads-google-play/
[21] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1020996/distribution-of-free-and-paid-ios-apps/
[22] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266211/distribution-of-free-and-paid-android-apps/
[23] https://www.statista.com/statistics/256776/distribution-paid-free-amazon-appstore-apps/
[24] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269868/distribution-of-apps-worldwide-by-monetization-method/
[25] https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1262892/mobile-app-revenue-worldwide-by-segment