A new report by Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates that App Store and Google Play users spent a combined $34.4 billion on mobile apps and games in the first half of 2018. This figure represents a year-over-year increase of 27.8 percent over the first half of 2017, when consumers spent a combined $26.9 billion on both stores.
Worldwide Mobile App Revenue and Downloads
Apple’s App Store saw consumer spending of approximately $38.5 billion last year, nearly double the estimated $20.1 billion spent on Google Play, which, unlike its competitor, is not available in China. In terms of growth, this translated to a year-over-year increase of about 34.7 percent for the App Store, edging out Google Play at approximately 34.2 percent.
Consumer spending on Apple’s App Store reached an estimated $22.6 billion worldwide in the first half, which was about 90 percent or 1.9 times more than was spent on Google Play during the first two quarters of this year. Spending on iOS grew 26.8 percent over the same period in 2017, compared to 29.7 percent for Google Play.
Netflix was the highest grossing non-game app worldwide in 1H18, followed by Tinder and Tencent Video.
Worldwide first-time app installs reached approximately 51 billion, an increase of 11.3 percent over the first half of 2017 when downloads totalled an estimated 45.8 billion across both stores. Facebook led worldwide downloads in 1H18, with its WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram ranked among the top four apps by combined installs across both platforms.
The growth of Google Play app downloads was more pronounced than those from Apple’s store at 13.1 percent versus 10.6 percent, respectively, a byproduct of Android’s higher rate of adoption in developing nations. Google Play downloads, which we count as the first install of an app per user account, totalled approximately 36 billion, or about 2.4 times the App Store’s estimated 15 billion.
Apple’s platform earned more than double the revenue of Google’s with fewer than half as many downloads. App downloads grew 13.1 percent versus the same period in 2017 on the App Store, where they totalled 15 billion, a larger increase than the 10.6 percent growth experienced by Google’s platform at 36 billion installs, or more than double iOS.
Worldwide Mobile Game Revenue and Downloads
Turning our focus to mobile games, 2017 saw their global consumer spend increase approximately 30 percent year-over-year to an estimated $48.3 billion, which represented nearly 82 percent of all app revenue. Game revenue on the App Store and Google Play also grew at about 30 percent per store over 2016, with an estimated $30 billion spent on Apple’s platform compared to approximately $18 billion on Google’s store.
Spending in mobile games grew 19.1 percent in the first half of 2018 to an estimated $26.6 billion worldwide on the App Store and Google Play, representing about 78 percent of the total spent in apps across both stores. App Store mobile game spending reached $16.3 billion for the first two quarters of this year, growing 15.1 percent year-over-year. This is compared to $10.3 billion spent on Google play games during the period, a year-over-year increase of 26 percent.
Honour of Kings from Tencent, Monster Strike from Mixi, and Fate/Grand Order from Sony Aniplex were the top three grossing mobile games worldwide across both stores in the first half.
Worldwide game downloads totalled 15 billion in the first half on Google Play, representing 77 percent of all new mobile game installs for the period between the two stores, growing 10.3 percent year-over-year. Game downloads on the App Store grew slightly more at 14.1 percent versus the first half of 2017 to an estimated 4.5 billion.
PUBG Mobile from Tencent, Helix Jump from Voodoo, and Subway Surfers from Kiloo were the three most downloaded mobile games across both stores during 1H18.
