The massive impact of the global COVID-19 lockdowns is revealed in new data from App Annie that shows global spending on apps surged by 40% in a year. Consumer spending grew 40% year over year to $21 billion on Apple’s App Store, and by the same percentage year over year to around $11 billion on Google Play.
Donny Kristianto for App Annie:
New App Annie data reveals that consumers spent $32 billion on in-app purchases across iOS and Google Play globally in Q1 2021. It’s the biggest quarter since records began – and the figure is 40% up on the same quarter for 2020.
The numbers illustrate the remarkable impact that the pandemic has had on the app market. Q1 2020 was the first period of global lockdowns. Stay at home orders forced consumers to seek out indoor stimulation, and they found it on their smartphones, through games and other highly engaging apps such as video streaming and social sharing platforms.
As a result, the market grew at unprecedented speed. Smartphone users spent around $9 billion more on apps and games in Q1 2021 than they did in Q1 2020.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple dominates in global app store spending despite the fact that iOS holds 27.33% of worldwide mobile operating system market share vs Android’s 71.90% (StatCounter, February 2021).
Once again, the data spotlights the vast difference between Apple product users and the bottom of the barrel. Hew Haw!
As Apple’s share price has dropped around 18% over the past couple of months, I didn’t think the App Store was making much money at all. That’s no small amount of money, so I wonder where it disappeared to. Anyway, it’s nice to know that Apple is doing well financially despite the pandemic.