The mobile application market shows mixed signs in 2024, with a decline in downloads but a significant increase in spending. A trend which reflects the growing maturity of the mobile ecosystem, particularly favorable to Apple. This year 2024 consolidates a reality that has existed for a long time: despite a market share three times smaller than the Google Play Store, Apple’s app store generates three times more money.
Record revenues despite a slowdown in downloads
The mobile app economy generated an impressive $127.3 billion in revenue in 2024, up 15.7% from 2023. Apple’s App Store largely dominates with $91.6 billion dollars in revenue (+24%), while the Google Play Store shows a slight decline of 1.5% to 35.7 billion dollars. The United States remains the most lucrative market with $47.6 billion in spending (+11%), including $34.4 billion for the App Store.
Paradoxically, the total number of downloads decreased by 2.3% to reach 109.7 billion in 2024. This drop concerns both platforms: -1.1% for iOS (28.3 billion) and -2.6% for Android (81.4 billion). This trend is explained in particular by a drastic cleaning carried out by Google, which reduced the number of new applications on its store by 60%. For Apple, the market is decreasing in volume but growing in value; it’s always quite surprising to see but that’s the strength of the company.
TikTok and Instagram dominate a changing market
TikTok confirms its leading position in terms of revenue with 2.5 billion dollars generated worldwide, including 1.3 billion in the United States. In terms of downloads, Instagram takes first place with 640 million installations. The Temu phenomenon has particularly stood out in the United States by becoming the most downloaded application with 48 million installations.
A highlight of 2024 is the growing importance of subscriptions: only 5% of applications offer this economic model, but they generate 48% of total revenue. The 10 most profitable applications now account for 13.7% of total spending, compared to 12.5% in 2023, illustrating increased market concentration.
This evolution of the applications market reflects a certain maturity, where the priority is no longer so much to acquire new users as to effectively monetize the existing base. A strategy that particularly benefits Apple, whose ecosystem continues to demonstrate its superiority in terms of monetization and user retention.
