The new apps market study by Sensor Tower shows that global consumer spending in mobile apps reached $133 billion in 2021 with 20% Y-o-Y growth. And based on the current trends, the research firm expects users’ spending on the App Store to reach $85.1 billion with 17.7% Y-o-Y growth across apps and games in 2021.
The research accredits impressive growth to the normalization of the market in the post-COVID-19 scenario. Consumer spending on the app stores, App Store and Google Play, grew from $111.1 billion in 2020 to $133 billion in 2021.
After the boom in adoption and spending for both mobile games and non-game apps in 2020, market trends began normalizing in 2021 as worldwide consumer spending is projected to reach approximately $133 billion on in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions across the App Store and Google Play, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data. This represents 19.7 percent year-over-year growth from $111.1 billion in 2020, nearly mirroring the 21 percent Y/Y growth consumer spending experienced in 2019.
TikTok is the highest earning app, and Honor of Kings is the highest-grossing gaming app on the App Store in 2021
Although Google Play store sees higher 23.5 % Y-o-Y growth than App Store’s 17.7% growth, consumers have spent less on Google Play Store than App Store’. Therefore, by the end of 2021, it is expected that users’ spendings on the App Store will hit $85.1 billion and Google Play will reach $47.9 billion.
In the mobile games category, Honor of Kings from Tencent is the highest-grossing iOS game with $2.9 billion in spendings. The most popular app on the App Store in 2021 is TikTok with an expected $2.3 billion in spending. TikTok is also the most downloaded app on the App Store for 2021. The Chinese video-sharing app has already crossed 3 billion downloads worldwide, the first non-Facebook app to achieve the status since 2014.
To push the app on iOS, Apple launched the new FaceTime SharePlay feature with native support on TikTok. Users can watch videos, explore new creators, and more on TikTok in real-time with their friends and family.
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