For a clearer view of what happened with app spending in 2020 it's important to look back to before the pandemic. According to Trading Platforms, global consumers spent about $85 billion on apps in 2019 between Google Play and Apple's App store. Once stay-home orders were put in place and people began to avoid physical stores, that spending crept up, and as 2020 ended, app spending increased by nearly $20 billion.
Spending in Apple's App Store increased to just over $75 billion, and spending in Google's Play Store increased to nearly $39 billion for a total app spend of nearly $111 billion.
Overall that is a 30% increase in spending between 2019 and 2020.
At the same time, consumers were also downloading more apps. Downloads increased by about 30% YoY, too, as consumers sought new ways to entertain and inform themselves and stay connected to family and friends through the pandemic.
Meanwhile, App Annie is reporting that consumers downloaded 218 billion apps through 2020, spending just over 4 hours per day in-app. This, of course, drove more advertisers into the mobile space or to increase their mobile ad budgets. According to App Annie data the mobile ad spend increased 26% to land at $240 billion for the year.
What is really interesting from App Annie's State of Mobile 2021 report is the increase in mobile shopping. M:Commerce has been growing steadily over the past five years, but in 2020 there was a 30% spike in mobile shopping usage, making 2020 the largest mobile shopping year to date. More than 80 billion hours were spent within mobile shopping apps, and during the holiday shopping season people spent $53 billion within mobile shopping apps, a 55% YoY increase.
It wasn't only entertainment or shopping, though, that had people hitting their mobile devices. Business apps saw increased usage that nearly tripled between 2019 and 2020 as offices shut down and people worked remotely.
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