Global consumer spending on mobile apps across Apple’s App Store and Google Play surpassed the $100 billion mark in 2020, said a report by Sensor Tower.
According to the report, worldwide consumer spending was approximately $106 billion between January 1 and December 17, witnessing a 30 per cent growth year-over-year when compared to the same period in 2019.
Consumer spending during this time period was also 24 per cent higher than the total consumer spending in 2019, approximately $85.2 billion.
“Worldwide spending across the App Store and Google Play has climbed each year, but it was supercharged in 2020 as many users turned to mobile games and video-on-demand apps for entertainment, and video conferencing for work and school,” Sensor Tower said in a blog post.
Nearly 65 per cent of the consumer spending so far has been on the App Store, which has generated more than $69 billion, as per the report. The App Store has witnessed a 30 per cent YoY growth from the same period last year. Google Play has generated nearly $37 billion in revenue during this time, up 30 per cent YoY from $28.4 billion in 2019.
Mobile games accounted for 71.7 per cent of spending year-to-date, amounting to $76 billion. Non-game apps overall accounted for $30 billion in spending, led by entertainment.
A record five mobile games generated over $1 billion in 2020, with PUBG Mobile topping the list at $2.6 billion.
Business apps also witnessed a significant growth between January and November, with nearly 3.6 billion installs globally from across App Store and Google Play.
Zoom was the most downloaded app worldwide with 667 million installs between January 1 and December 17, followed by Google Meet and Microsoft Teams with 324.5 million and 195.5 million installs, respectively, as per the report.