Despite a recent global decline in smartphone shipments that market researchers expect to get worse as vendors remain unable to entice faster upgrades, certain parts of the mobile industry are showing (almost) no signs of a slowdown whatsoever.
The number of smartphone and tablet gamers, for instance, is on the rise in North America, while according to fresh Sensor Tower estimates, mobile app spending around the world has jumped a healthy 22.7 percent year-on-year in 2018 to a combined App Store and Google Play total of $71.3 billion.
Unsurprisingly, Apple continues to run a significantly more profitable iOS digital distribution platform than its Google-managed Android counterpart, despite the latter’s pretty huge advantage in app downloads.
The $46.6 billion gross revenue generated by App Store titles last year is a whopping 88 percent higher than the $24.8 billion spent on Google Play, also representing a solid 20.4 percent growth from the App Store’s 2017 earnings tally.
Believe it or not, the number of first-time app installs from Google’s Play Store exceeded the App Store’s same metric by an astounding 160 percent, although a large chunk of those 75.7 billion Android installs obviously came from free-to-play titles.
Google can certainly be happy about the recent growth rate of its Play Store in both revenue and first-time app installs, managing to beat Apple with year-on-year improvements of 27.3 and 13 percent respectively, compared to 20.4 and 6.6 percent.
But while that obviously resulted in overall growth for combined mobile app revenue and downloads, the market actually slowed its progress compared to gains reported between 2016 and 2017.
It’s also interesting to point out that, even though mobile game revenue and downloads have surged in 2018, the gaming category accounted for a smaller piece of the overall spending pie than the previous year. We’re talking a still-impressive 77 percent share, but down from 82 percent as non-gaming apps are starting to be better monetized by both Google and Apple.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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