In 2017 Asia-Pacific spent $11.1 billion on the app store while Europe, Middle East and Africa spent $4.8 billion and the Americans spent $6.1 billion.Īpp Annie attributes the rise of the region to Google’s expansion of carrier billing to more markets in Asia-Pacific such as Taiwan, Thailand and Singapore. However, despite China’s absence, Asia-Pacific still accounts for over 50% of Google Play’s consumer spend.
As a result, China does not currently have access to the Google Play Store and its enormous Android market is not referenced in the report. This is signs of a broadening of the app economy, potentially leading to growth in the coming years.Ĭhina has had a tense relationship with Google since most of its services were blocked back in 2010. In 2018 over 1,500 apps made over $1 million in annual consumer spend, with 330 of those exceeding $10m in a year. Subscription services such as Netflix, Spotify and Tinder have unlocked long-term revenue streams, while disruptive services like Uber and Deliveroo have built entire new sub-sections of the economy to serve their ‘just in time’ service offerings.Īs a result, more apps than ever are making big money on Google Play. However, apps are very much on the up at the moment.
With games like Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, Puzzles and Dragons, Game of War and Monster Strike generating enormous free to play revenues early, games businesses were able to both rack up incredible revenue figures and monopolise the talent capable of driving success on mobile app stores (such as user acquisition experts). Why the discrepancy? Well, a large part of it comes down to the comparative maturity of mobile free to play games. This can be broken down on a regional and annual basis too, with the Asia-Pacific market spending $10.1 billion on games in 2017 compared to just $0.9 billion on apps.įigures in grey represent EMEA, figures in blue represent While 17% of Google Play releases that are categorised as games account for an impressive 41% of all downloads, they accounted for an even more impressive 88% of all spend. While 83% of those releases have been apps, the smaller portion of mobile games has undoubtedly had a bigger commercial impact. Over the ten years of Google Play’s existence, nearly 10 million apps have been released on the platform.
While Apple users might still spend about twice as much money as Google Play Store users, revenue has nearly doubled between 20 hitting $22 billion.Īnd with App Annie predicting that annual consumer spend will reach $42 billion in 2022, it is possible that Google Play’s enormous install base may translate into iOS style revenues in the future. However, App Annie also indicates that Google Play is catching up in the revenue stake.
That means – on average – every person in the world would theoretically have downloaded 50 apps on Google Play. In total, App Annie pegs the figure at 330 billion installs between early 2012 and the summer of 2018.
App Annie’s research indicates that the first part of that story is true, but that the second element is changing quickly.Īccording to its figures, the store has generated more than double the number of downloads than the App Store has. The Google Play Store has always had a reputation of being a store which drives downloads first and revenue second. So what did we learn from the report? Here are four things that we have learned from App Annie’s analysis of the ten years of Google Play. App Annie has created a report into the history of the store – called “ The Data Behind 10 Years of Google Play ” – which looks at where the store came from, where it is today and where it’ll go in the future. That’s why it seems like a good time to explore an interesting retrospective of the store. Launched originally as The Android Market on October 22 in 2008 with barely a dozen apps to its name, Google’s App Store houses 2.6 million apps – playing a major role in transforming our entire economy. It has been ten years since the birth of Google Play.