Apple’s App Store continues to massively outpace Google Play on consumer spending, the report also found.
In the first half of 2019, global consumers spent $25.5 billion on the iOS App Store, up 13.2% year-over-year from the $22.6 billion spent in the first half of 2018. Last year, the growth in consumer spending was 26.8%, for comparison’s sake.
Still, Apple’s estimated $25.5 billion in the first half of 2019 is 80% higher than Google Play’s estimated gross revenue of $14.2 billion — the latter, a 19.6% increase from the first half of 2018.
Source: SensorTower data.
It is interesting to note that the rate of growth has slowed. The analysts attribute this to problems in China, but predict a return to positive growth in the next 12-months. (Don’t forget, the former top fee-based app, Netflix, no longer pays either platform any in-app subscription fees.)
The report also notes that iOS app installs actually slowed down and that Google Play installs are now “about 2.8 times” greater than iOS App Store installs. Though it doesn’t explain how the developers making those Google Play apps actually get paid, given sales generate so much less money…
App Store developers have earned over $120 billion since 2008.
MacDailyNews Take: Follow the money.
The apps you buy for iOS are pretty much guaranteed to work.
For Android? Not so much, given the fragmented nature of what Steve Jobs called a “stolen” platform. Apple users also know their apps are curated, which makes them more likely to invest good money in them…
And this is with a multiple of Android devices out there. Of what, likely four to one? And despite the greater # of Android app installs.
Im-pressive. And I’m an Android user who uses Macs, lol….
It is amusing that each time a comparison is made with iOS App Store sales it is exclusively with Google Play sales. Not that it isn’t true but if you are comparing sales of apps by platform perhaps it would be more realistic to remove the blinders and compare iOS App sales with that of Android Apps as a whole across other outlets with significant footprints, such as Amazon at the very least. This might go far in explaining the author’s posed question of “how the developers making those Google Play (Android) apps actually get paid.”
What a shocker.
:/