App Annie: Global app downloads reached nearly 26 billion times in Q3 2017, with revenue reaching $17 billion

According to the latest report from app market research firm App Annie, global app downloads and revenue hit record highs in the third quarter of 2017.

apple App Store and Google Google Play, the two major app stores, had nearly 26 billion downloads worldwide in the third quarter, up 8% from the same period last year. This figure does not include app reinstalls and upgrades, only new downloads. In other words, this can depict the true growth of the app economy without including people downloading because they want to get a new version of an existing app or redownload a previously installed app.

In addition, app revenue reached a record high of $17 billion.

A lot of the download growth is coming from emerging markets where smartphone penetration is relatively low, which means we may see continued growth in downloads around the world for some time.

Specifically, App Annie found that Google Play download growth was driven by emerging markets, with the largest contribution coming from India, where downloads doubled from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2017.

Other Southeast Asian countries also contributed to Google Play's growth, especially Vietnam and Indonesia, both of which saw double-digit year-over-year growth, with Indonesia ranking fourth and Vietnam seventh.

Overall, Google Play's global downloads were higher than iOS, up 10% from last year.

Meanwhile, iOS downloads grew 8% from the previous quarter—the highest sequential growth recorded since 2016. This was driven primarily by China, which saw the largest sequential market share gains, followed by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the growth in downloads, consumer spending is also growing. In the third quarter, App Store and Google Play app revenue combined was close to $17 billion, up 28% year-over-year.

iOS app revenue growth led the way, with consumers spending nearly twice as much on the App Store as on Google Play in the third quarter of 2017. But both app stores saw record consumer spending, thanks to year-over-year growth of more than 25%.

China is once again a major factor. It is the largest market for consumer spending and has the highest year-on-year growth in absolute spending. South Korea is currently ranked fourth in consumer spending and second in growth.

App Annie attributed South Korea’s performance on both iOS and Android platforms to NCSOFT’s game “Lineage M,” which became the highest-grossing app for both platforms that quarter.

Entertainment apps, especially streaming video apps, also performed strongly in the third quarter, with global consumer spending in this area increasing 30% month-over-month on the App Store and 45% on Google Play.

On iOS. Tencent Video grew the fastest, followed by Youku and StarZ. On Google Play, HBO Now saw the fastest change in share, followed by Netflix and StarZ.

Apps continue to occupy more of consumers' time and energy, with the time consumers spent on apps increasing 40% year-on-year to nearly 325 billion hours in the quarter. (These data only come from Android phones and do not include China, so they are not very representative. But they do roughly reflect the growth trend.)

App Annie currently expects global app downloads to approach 240 billion by 2021, and app spending to exceed $100 billion.