Sensor Tower: 2021 H1 Global Popular Entertainment Apps List - Douyin and TikTok Retain Double Top Rankings

Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows that global consumer spending on entertainment apps has accelerated over the past year, reaching twice the growth rate before the outbreak. At the same time, people's preferences for online entertainment content are becoming more diverse. Compared with short and long videos, consumer spending on live broadcast and comics apps has grown faster. Please see below for detailed data.

Note: The data in this article comes from Sensor Tower Store Intelligence Platform. The data only counts the App Store and Google Play, excluding third-party Android markets in China and other regions; the statistical period of the ranking data is from January 1 to June 24, 2021.

Entertainment app revenue growth accelerates

In the first half of 2021, global consumer spending on entertainment apps reached $4.59 billion, up 55.8% from the first half of 2020. In comparison, entertainment app revenue grew 28.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2020, and grew 26.1% in the first half of 2019.

The dividends brought by the epidemic have doubled the growth rate of global entertainment application revenue. In the past year, online entertainment has become an indispensable part of people's lives. Although many countries have recently relaxed or lifted home orders, people's consumption on entertainment applications has maintained strong growth.

In terms of download volume, the download volume of entertainment apps usually declines briefly in the fourth quarter of each year due to increased advertising for shopping apps, and then rebounds in the first quarter of the following year. This rule still applies during the epidemic. In the first half of this year, the global download volume of entertainment apps was 4.47 billion times, an increase of 6% compared to the first half of last year when the epidemic broke out.

U.S. has the highest income, Japan has the fastest growth

In terms of revenue, the United States, China and Japan are the markets with the highest mobile entertainment revenue in the world, accounting for 31%, 27% and 17% of the total revenue in the first half of the year respectively. The three markets account for 75% of the global total revenue.

Among them, the US and Japanese markets had revenues of 1.43 billion and 790 million US dollars in the first half of the year, up 64% and 102% respectively, ahead of the global growth rate of 55.8%. During the epidemic, in markets with high spending power, people were more willing to pay for entertainment apps, making the United States and Japan the world's highest-earning and fastest-growing online entertainment markets respectively.

In terms of download volume, the top three markets in the first half of the year were India, the United States, and Brazil, accounting for 19%, 11%, and 9% respectively. The global entertainment application market is still unbalanced in terms of traffic and monetization, and manufacturers should make strategic plans between seizing emerging markets and developing mature markets.

Top 10 global entertainment apps

It is estimated that in the first half of this year, the in-app purchase revenue of Douyin and the overseas version of TikTok will exceed US$920 million, a year-on-year increase of 74%, and will continue to top the global entertainment app revenue list. YouTube ranks second on the list with an estimated revenue of US$564 million, and the comic app Piccoma (ピッコマ) ranks third with US$505 million.

Comparing the 2019 and 2020 annual rankings, we found that except for Netflix, which fell out of the list due to the opening of an independent payment channel, Disney+ maintained its ranking with its IP resources and new film promotion, and the rankings of several other long video applications have declined to varying degrees in the past two years. Due to the diversification of user interests and fragmentation of entertainment time, short video, live broadcast and comic applications have shown faster growth. Twitch's mobile revenue surged 135% year-on-year and entered the top ten for the first time. Piccoma and LINE comics have both improved in ranking, and the total revenue of the two comic applications increased by 153% year-on-year.

In terms of download volume, Douyin and TikTok have topped the global entertainment app download list for three consecutive years since 2018, and this year's first half is no exception. Douyin and TikTok are expected to receive 380 million downloads on the global App Store and Google Play, making them the most downloaded apps in the world in the first half of the year. Indian short video MX TakaTak and YouTube ranked second and third respectively.

Note: Sensor Tower's revenue estimates do not include in-app advertising, or revenue generated through third-party payment channels such as ride-hailing, food ordering, and online shopping; taxes and refunds are not reflected in the estimated data. Download data only counts first-time installations from App Store or Google Play accounts. Multiple installations from the same account on different or the same device are not counted repeatedly. Download data has merged multiple versions of the same app, such as Facebook and Facebook Lite.