Consumers spent an estimated $21.9 billion USD ($28.9 billion CAD) on Android and iOS apps in the third quarter of 2019, according a report from app analytics firm Sensor Tower.
The spending — which factors in revenue from in-app purchases, subscriptions and premium apps — represents a 22.9 percent increase from Q3 2018.
As is normally the case, Sensor Tower notes that roughly two-thirds of this revenue came from the App Store, with iOS users spending $14.2 billion USD ($18.7 billion CAD) last quarter. This marked a 22.3 increase in App Store spending from Q3 2018.
Meanwhile, the Google Play Store generated $7.7 billion USD ($10.1 billion CAD) in revenue, an increase of 24 percent from the year prior.
On the other hand, Google Play racked up nearly three-times more first-time app installs in Q3 2019 than the App Store. The Play Store brought in 19.4 billion first-time installs in Q3 compared to the App Store’s nearly eight billion.
Overall, the total number of app downloads in Q3 2019 was 29.6 billion, representing a growth of 9.7 percent from Q3 2018.
In terms of specific apps, Sensor Tower says Tinder maintained continued to be the top non-gaming app on the worldwide charts with a gross of $233 million USD ($307.6 million CAD). This was up seven percent from the same period in 2018.
Sensor Tower also singled out YouTube for its rising in-app spending by 16 percent to $164 million USD ($216.5 million CAD). Interestingly, Sensor Tower notes that YouTube’s app revenue has never declined in terms of user spending.
Shifting over to games, Sensor Tower says global mobile game gross revenue grew to $16.3 billion USD ($21.5 billion CAD) in Q3 2019, up 20 percent year-over-year. Across the App Store and Google Play, mobile game revenue accounted for 74 percent of overall app marketplace spending. However, this was a decline from the 76 percent share that mobile games claimed in Q3 2018.
In terms of revenue split, the App Store brought in $9.8 billion ($12.9 billion CAD) in Q3 2019, up 19 percent year-over-year billion. The Play Store, meanwhile, grew 21.7 percent to $6.5 billion ($8.6 billion CAD) in Q3 2019. This roughly 60/40 revenue split in favour of the App Store remained consistent from Q3 2018.
Altogether, Google Play and App Store downloads increased by 17.6 percent to 11.1 billion in Q3 2019. Specifically, Google Play downloads came in at 8.7 billion (a 21 percent increase from Q3 2018) and App Store downloads rounded out at 2.4 billion (up 7.3 percent from Q3 2018.)
Notably, Tencent’s PUBG Mobile has become the world’s top-grossing game for the first time ever, says Sensor Tower. The free-to-play battle royale title garnered $496 million ($654.9 million CAD) in Q3 2019, marking a massive 652 percent from Q3 2018.
At the same time, Niantic’s Pokémon Go continued its strong momentum as the fastest-growing game by revenue quarter-over-quarter, climbing 63 percent to $308 million USD ($406.5 million CAD).
Source: Sensor Tower
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