Market tracker Sensor Tower said on Monday that app revenue from mobile phone users around the world reached new heights, reaching nearly $65 billion in the first half of this year. Apple and Google saw their respective mobile app shops flourish as the Silicon Valley giants used power in their respective markets. Preliminary figures from Sensor Tower show that $64.9 billion was spent on the App Store and Google Play in the first six months of this year, up 25 percent from the same period in 2020.
Sensor Tower estimates that $41.5 billion will be spent on subscriptions and apps on Apple’s App Store during the first half of this year, including in-app purchases such as virtual items for game characters. Google Play was expected to generate a total of $23.4 in revenue by the end of June. Video-snippet sharing sensation TikTok was the highest-grossing non-game mobile app, according to Sensor Tower, with users spending more than $920 million in a 74 percent increase from the first six months of last year. Market tracker estimated that Google-owned video streaming platform YouTube was the second largest non-game revenue generator, with users spending some $565 million.
Globally, spending in mobile games reached $44.7 billion in the first half of this year, up about 18 percent from the same period in 2020, according to Sensor Tower. “While consumer spending in mobile games has been growing at a slower pace than last year, this does not indicate a slowdown for the industry, but rather normalization following increased interest during the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Censor Tower said in a post that Chinese internet titan Tencent had the highest-grossing mobile game, Honor of Kings, which earned more than $1.5 billion in the first half of this year, according to the market tracker.
The survey reflects the growing importance of the so-called “app economy” and comes amid criticism over tight controls by Apple and Google of the two big markets. The Censor Tower figures were released to a federal court as evidence presented during a trial. Joe Epic Games is trying to break Apple’s tight grip on its App Store, and potentially disrupt the entire mobile ecosystem. Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, is seeking to force Apple to open up the App Store to third parties. Apple’s in-process payment system and its commissions to process are as high as 30 percent.
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