Apple App Store sees $72.3 billion in consumer spending in 2020

According to data presented by Trading Platforms, an online education and comparison platform for online traders, consumers spent close to US$111 billion globally on apps from both Apple’s App Store and Google Play – a 30% increase from 2019.

With the pandemic ravaging the globe for the most part of 2020, consumers had to adapt to a “new normal” as lockdowns forced most people to stay home. As a result, mobile devices, which have grown tremendously in influence for the last two decades, became even more significant in people’s lives, according to Trading Platforms. 

While both the App Store and Google Play recorded almost identical year-over-year (YoY) growth at 30%, data shows that the App store generated 87.3% more spending than Google Play. The App store recorded $72.3 billion in consumer spending compared to $56 billion in 2019. Google Play on the other hand generated $39 billion in 2020 compared to $30B in 2019.

There was also a record number of first-time downloads for the year of 2020 with Apple and Google Play recording a combined 143 billion downloads – a 23.7% increase from 2019. Notably, Google Play generated a higher YoY growth of