App Annie: Apple and Google App Store revenue reached $32 billion in Q1 2021, up 40% year-on-year

The global COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the Internet industry, including the mobile Internet App ecosystem. The latest market report shows that global consumer spending on mobile applications in the first quarter of this year set a new record. App Annie, a mobile Internet market research company, published the report. The report said that in the first quarter of this year, global consumers spent a total of US$32 billion on the two major software stores of Apple and Google, a year-on-year increase of 40%, setting a new record.

Last year, the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a significant increase in downloads and spending in the mobile software sector due to consumers staying at home, taking online classes, and working from home. This included all kinds of software related to entertainment, fitness, shopping, work, and learning. App Annie previously reported that the two major software stores received 218 billion downloads last year, with a total revenue of $143 billion.

This trend continued into the first quarter of this year, with consumer spending on mobile software increasing by $9 billion, including $21 billion at the Apple Software Store, significantly higher than the $11 billion at the Google Software Store, but total consumer spending at both stores increased by 40%.

However, the situation of popular software on the two major platforms, Android and iOS, is different.

In the Google software store, spending on games, social, and entertainment software saw the highest year-on-year growth, but in the Apple store, games, photo and video, and entertainment software saw the highest growth.

In the Google Store, social, tools and financial software had the largest number of downloads in the first quarter, but in the Apple Store, games, finance and social tools were the main drivers of the increase in downloads.

Star Software

The situation of popular software in the two major stores is basically the same. In the download rankings, the short video tool TikTok beat Facebook, followed by Instagram, encrypted chat tool Telegram, WhatsApp and video conferencing tool Zoom.

TikTok ranks second in consumer spending, behind YouTube, followed by Tinder, Disney Video, Tencent Video, etc.

In terms of monthly active users, Facebook's four major social tools, Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, ranked at the top, and TikTok ranked eighth in terms of user scale.

Among the new mobile apps in the first quarter was Signal, a more privacy-friendly chat tool, which saw rapid growth in both downloads and active users. The next fastest-growing app was Telegram, an encrypted chat tool. Another popular app was MX TakaTak, a short video tool that became popular after India banned TikTok.

Mobile Gaming

In the first quarter, gaming software ranked first in consumer spending, with a total of $22 billion spent. Apple Store spent $13 billion, up 30% year-on-year, and Google Store spent $9 billion, up 35% year-on-year. Gamers download an average of 1 billion games per week, with downloads up 15% year-on-year.

In terms of consumer spending, children's game platform software Roblox ranked first, followed by Genshin Impact, Coin Master, and Pokemon Go.

App Annie said the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the mobile gaming market, with game downloads growing much faster than other software in 2020. The company expects consumer spending on mobile games to reach $120 billion this year.