The App Store reportedly earned twice as much as the Google Play Store in Q3 2020

In total, $ 29.3 billion was spent on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, with more than 35.6 billion app installs, in the third quarter of 2020, according to a new report from Sensor tower.

App stores have seen significant year-on-year growth, with customers spending 32 percent more than at the same time in 2019, with 23.3 percent more installs. This is huge growth compared to a 24 percent spend increase and a nine percent increase in downloads last year.

Spending on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps increased by 31 percent to $ 19 billion worldwide on Apple’s Apple ‌App Store in the third quarter, up from $ 14.5 billion in the same quarter. last year’s period. This is almost double the revenue earned by Google’s Play Store, in line with last year’s split between the two platforms. However, of the 36.5 billion app installs, Apple’s ‌App Store‌ only accounted for 8.2 billion, while the Google Play Store had more than three times as many at 28.3 billion.

Short-form video social media app TikTok was the most downloaded app on both platforms, and it was also the highest-grossing non-game app globally. This was its second consecutive quarter as the highest grossing non-gaming app. At this time last year, Tinder was the highest grossing non-game app. As in previous quarters, Facebook apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, made up the majority of the top five non-game apps by global downloads, though none ranked first.

Tencent ranked first and second among the top five earning games in the third quarter with “Honor of Kings” and “PUBG Mobile.” Together, the five top-grossing games generated more than $ 2.4 billion, which is 12 percent of all consumer spending on mobile games last quarter. Game installs declined year-over-year for Apple’s ‌App Store‌ from 2.4 billion to 2.3 billion, with the vast majority of downloads coming from Google Play, which posted growth of 36.8 percent.

Sensor tower Analysts believe that heading into the fourth quarter, new trends will emerge, as well as standout new apps, driven in part by platform innovations such as home screen customization on iOS. A full report on global app adoption is expected soon with specific analytics from top publishers and trends for Q3.