App Store and Google Play users spent a combined $34.4 billion on mobile apps and games in the first half of this year, according to Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates. This figure represents a year-over-year increase of 27.8% over the first half of 2017, when consumers spent a combined $26.9 billion on both stores.
The research group says Apple’s App Store saw consumer spending of approximately $38.5 billion last year, nearly double the estimated $20.1 billion spent on Google Play, which, unlike its competitor, is not available in China. In terms of growth, this translated to a year-over-year increase of about 34.7% for the App Store, edging out Google Play at approximately 34.2%.
Consumer spending on Apple’s App Store reached an estimated $22.6 billion worldwide in the first half, which was about 90% or 1.9 times more than was spent on Google Play during the first two quarters of this year. Spending on iOS grew 26.8% over the same period in 2017, compared to 29.7% for Google Play.
Apple’s platform earned more than double the revenue of Google’s with fewer than half as many downloads. App downloads grew 13.1% versus the same period in 2017 on the App Store, where they totaled 15 billion, a larger increase than the 10.6%growth experienced by Google’s platform at 36 billion installs, or more than double iOS.
However, the growth of Google Play app downloads was more pronounced than those from Apple’s store at 13.1% versus 10.6%, respectively, a byproduct of Android’s higher rate of adoption in developing nations, according to Sensor Tower. Google Play downloads, which we count as the first install of an app per user account, totaled approximately 36 billion, or about 2.4 times the App Store’s estimated 15 billion.
Worldwide first-time app installs reached approximately 51 billion, an increase of 11.3 percent over the first half of 2017, when downloads totaled an estimated 45.8 billion across both stores.
