The analytics company Sensor Tower (via Ars Technica) has discovered something interesting as it went through data for the second quarter of 2022. For the first time since the App Store opened in 2008, the most of the revenue in the states comes from apps rather than games. According to Sensor Tower, spending on non-gaming apps is doubling the rate of gaming apps. Since June 2014, spending on non-gaming apps has grown at a compound rate of 40%. The evolution towards non-gaming apps began last May. Last month, 50.3% of U.S. App Store spending was for non-gaming apps like Netflix and TikTok, this is due in part to the use of subscriptions for non-gaming apps. they are games. Gaming applications typically offered users simple subscription packages that have begun to adopt non-gaming applications. It has been reported that Apple met with iOS app developers to try to get more of them to support the use of a recurring subscription model. During the second quarter of this year, 400 non-gaming App Store apps contributed at least $ 1 million to consumers. This compares to just 50 apps of this type that reached that benchmark during the second quarter of 2016. Even better, 61 apps in the App Store raised $ 10 million during the second quarter of this year.
Spending on non-gaming apps exceeds gaming apps in Apple’s App Store
Please note that the strong growth in subscription apps that Sensor Tower discovered is only related to the App Store. In the Google Play Store, gaming apps for Android devices still account for the bulk of revenue. On this platform, gaming apps earned $ 2.3 billion in revenue during the second quarter of this year compared to the $ 1 billion generated by non-gaming apps. For comparison, 50.3% of App Store spending was for non-gaming apps, while those apps accounted for only 30.3% of purchases on the Google Play Store during the same quarter. Earlier this month, a report covering the first half of 2022 showed that spending on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store amounted to $ 65 billion, just 1% more during the first half of the year . Android device owners spent $ 21.3 billion on the Play Store during the first half of 2022, 7.4% less than the $ 23 billion they spent during the first half of 2021. The gross gross of the App Store reached $ 41.4 in the first six months of 2022, up 22.1%. year after year. As people get tired of having to deal with the pandemic, many are no longer interested in staying home and playing, or even streaming movies, audio, and TV shows purchased from the App Store. on Google Play. Shop.