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The global app market shows significant growth in 2024, led by the strong performance of the Apple App Store. Appnumbers says consumer spending on mobile apps and games increased to $127 billion, up 15.7% year-over-year. What's striking is that the growth is accompanied by opposite trends: while download numbers have fallen, revenue has soared, primarily due to the rise of subscription-based apps.
Apple App Store vs Google Play
In 2024, the Apple App Store recorded $91.6 billion in consumer spending, a significant increase of 24% compared to the previous year. In stark contrast, Google Play saw revenue decline 1.5% to $35.7 billion. Apple's success is due in large part to the proliferation of subscription-based apps.
Only 5% of apps worldwide offered subscriptions last year, but these account for 48% of app sales in both app stores, i.e. app figures. Additionally, the top 10 top-grossing apps globally generated 13.7% of all consumer spending, up 1.2% from 12.5% in 2023.
Declining downloads
Global app downloads fell 2.3% to 110 billion in 2024. The war was even more pronounced in the United States, where downloads fell 3.4% to 10.6 billion.
This trend can be explained by several factors. Above all, Google now has stricter guidelines in the Play Store that target spam and low-quality apps. Ultimately, the app stores experience a 60 percent disadvantage in publishing.
