During the third quarter of 2022, user spending across the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store was approximately 31.6 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of approximately two billion U.S. dollars compared to the corresponding quarter during the previous year. In 2025, the global revenue of mobile apps is projected to generate more than 600 billion U.S. dollars, with mobile game publishers taking the lion’s share, followed by social media, and entertainment.
Large app publishers include recognizable names in the digital and media industry who have started providing their customers with a mobile alternative to their primary platforms. In the first half of 2022, the top one percent of app publishers generated over 90 percent of the app revenues across Google Play and the Apple App Store. While the number of mobile apps generating over 100 million U.S. dollars in consumer spending has experienced a constant increase between 2012 and 2021, the ranking of the highest-grossing app publishers in September 2022 was composed of traditional services providers, large social media companies, and digital market leaders.
North America - ahead of the game
In 2022, the mobile app market in North and Latin America was dominated by large corporations based in the United States, with many of the highest-grossing mobile app publishers being worldwide recognizable names in the digital market. Despite offering only a limited number of paid services or subscription apps, Google LLC was the leading North and Latin American app publisher as of October 2022, with freemium apps like YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Drive contributing to the over two billion U.S. dollars generated by in-app purchases for the year. By comparison, apps published by Microsoft were among the most downloaded worldwide, with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Word reporting approximately 30 million and 18 million downloads during the second quarter of 2022, respectively.One non-gaming app category which saw increasing public attention in 2020 and 2021 was video platforms such as Netflix, which launched its mobile app around 2010 to cater mainly to its tablet audience. As of the third quarter of 2022, the Netflix app experienced a slowing download trend, reporting a decrease in quarterly installs of around 20 percent compared to the corresponding quarter in 2021. The video service, which will start offering ad-supported subscriptions in October 2022, is not alone in experiencing a normalization and decrease in its growth metrics. Similarly, live-streaming platform Twitch has seen its in-app revenues decrease from over 54 million U.S. dollars during the second quarter of 2021, to around 48 million U.S. dollars in the corresponding quarter in 2022.
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa – a developing industry
While mobile gaming publishers based in Europe have gone on to experience worldwide prominence with many of their products becoming household names, mobile non-gaming apps developed in Europe have mostly remained under the global public radar. A notable exception is London-based DAZN Limited, which saw almost 159 million U.S. dollars in app revenues from users watching live and on-demand sports events on one of the publisher’s OTT streaming apps.Two long-time standing app publishers based in Europe that have successfully brought their services from browser to mobile since are the London-based Badoo and the German Babbel. Badoo, which was originally launched in Russia in 2006 as a social media platform focused on online dating, has been since acquired by the American Bumble Inc. and reported revenues for 232.7 million U.S. dollars in 2021. Babbel, which provides users with online language learning classes, was launched in 2008 and generated in-app revenues of over four million U.S. dollars in February 2022.
In September 2021, Jerusalem-based app publisher Lightricks Ltd., which rose to global popularity with the photo and selfie editing application Facetune, received a valuation of almost two billion U.S. dollars after its last round of funding. Facetune, which was among the first apps to bet on the subscription strategy, has largely contributed to Lightricks generating approximately 141 million U.S. dollars in revenues in 2021. The company acquired its unicorn status in 2019 and was said to be looking to enter the public market in 2022, but as of the end of 2022 it has not made its IPO plans public.
Asia-Pacific – acquiring worldwide recognition
Despite Chinese tech companies facing tough scrutiny in their home country and abroad, the global public has started to appreciate both gaming and non-gaming mobile apps from China, with titles like PUBG and TikTok constantly ranking among the most popular apps for global audiences. In 2022, Shenzhen-based Tencent reported revenues of more than 6.2 billion U.S. dollars from in-app purchases on Google Play and the Apple App Store alone, while its most popular all-in-one mobile app WeChat maintained its position as the strongest brand on the global market in 2022.Mobile-first social media apps developed in the region have also managed to popularize new communication and media formats, like live-streaming sessions for both entertainment and e-commerce. While Amazon-owned Twitch is still the most popular live-streaming platform for North American and European audiences, Singapore-based BIGO Technology, founded in 2014, promises to become one of the leading live-streaming platforms worldwide, with global consumer spending on its namesake platform surpassing 300 million U.S. dollars in the first half of 2021.
