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Analytics firm App Annie is out with a new report on app expenditure. Per the company, the third quarter of the year was a solid one, both in terms of downloads and consumer spending. While Google Play registered more downloads, Apple’s App Store was able to rake in more revenue.
The company claims that this was the strongest quarter ever for mobile apps, with downloads totaling 31 billion, a year-over-year increase of 10 percent. Globally, consumers spent a whopping $23 billion on apps, which is 20 percent more than expenditure in the year-ago quarter.
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Continue To Be One Of The Most Downloaded Apps
FaceApp saw a massive surge in popularity, earning it a spot in the top ten most downloaded apps of Q3. App Annie believes it shot to fame again after initially going viral in 2017 because of the new aging filter. The fact that even celebrities posted their results also helped considerably.
Netflix not only broke into the top 10 most downloaded non-gaming apps but also stayed perched at the second spot for consumer spending. It will be interesting to see if the impending arrival of other subscription services such as Apple TV Plus and Disney+ will be able to disrupt the ranking.
Google One, the search giant’s cloud subscription service, made it to the top ten grossing apps list. The first 15 GB are on the company, and the storage is spread across Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. By subscribing to the program, users can get more storage space as well as premium support.
Facebook, Facebook Messengers, Instagram, and WhatsApp all continued to rank highly for downloads and monthly active users, while Tinder remained the top grosser.
Google Play downloads surged to 23 billion, a year over year growth of 10 percent. iOS downloads, on the other hand, remained stable, giving the Mountain View company a lead of 175 percent in downloads. India and Brazil continued to drive the most downloads on Google Play in Q3 2019. For iOS downloads, China, the U.S., Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil were the top contributors.
App Annie Claims Gaming Apps Attracted More Spending Than Non-Gaming Apps
Non-gaming apps made up more than 60 percent of the downloads across both stores. On Google Play, Comics, Finance, and Auto & Vehicles were the most popular categories. Shopping, Food and Drink, and Health and Fitness garnered the most interest amongst iOS users.
Spending on apps across both platforms went up by 20 percent in Q3. Gaming apps raked in more revenue than the non-gaming ones on both iOS and Android. iOS continued to have a wide lead over Google Play, with 95 percent more consumer spending.
On iOS, non-gaming categories that attracted spending include Photo & Video, Entertainment, and Music. Social, Productivity, and Entertainment were the most popular categories outside of gaming on Google Play as far as expenditure is concerned.
App Annie believes that the start of the school year is one of the factors that led to increased download and spending. Other contributing factors include the beginning of football leagues all over the world as we as the new Stranger Things season on Netflix.
This momentum will likely continue in Q4 2019, given the fact that the holiday season has started. It’s rather interesting to see that at a time when shipments are declining, services are still going strong. With the arrival of 5G, we can expect the growth to continue well into 2020 and beyond.
