Global App Spend Surpasses $110B in Q3, Driven by 12.4% YoY Growth Across Google Play and iOS

According to Sensor Tower’s Digital Market Index report, Q3 of 2024 set some high records across the digital economy. Mobile app economy saw its peak this quarter as the global consumer spend across Google Play and iOS surpassed $38 billion, which is a 12.4% increase year-over-year. Other sectors like digital advertising and retail media also set some records on mobile apps. There was a 10% YoY increase seen in the digital ad market in the US and the total digital ad spend reached $30 billion in Q3 2024. There was a 5% increase in other markets too like Germany, UK and Canada.

On September 5th 2024, the global consumer spend on Google Play and iOS reached a $100 billion milestone, which is quicker than it was in 2023. By the end of Q3 2024, global consumer spend surpassed $110 billion. There were some news trends seen on mobile apps. Games were always dominating but in Q3 2024, there was a 25% YoY rise in mobile apps too. Games still have the top spot with $20.4 billion consumer spend while apps had $17.7 billion consumer spend.

Europe saw a strong mobile performance with consumer spend rising by 25% YoY. A 13% and 6% YoY growth YoY was seen in North America and Asia respectively. The US is still going to be a dominating market for app developers even though it is lagging behind Europe. Europe’s growth in consumer spend was higher than the US, but the US still had $1.1 billion YoY growth which is higher than Europe.

A year ago, TikTok became the first app to reach $1 billion in a quarter and it got $1.5 billion in consumer spend in Q3 2024 because of mobile monetisation. Other top ten apps had somewhat the same consumer spend this quarter with Instagram, YouTube, Google, Disney+ and Tinder being at the top five. In terms of number of downloads, Instagram surpassed TikTok in Q3 2024. Threads also got into the top ten most downloaded apps in Q3 2024. ChatGPT also made it to the top ten, while Google Gemini was third in quarter-over-quarter download growth. All of the AI chatbots and image generators got $315 million in consumer spend while they got 360 million downloads, showing 26% and 15% QoQ growth respectively.

The digital ad spend in the US also reached $30 billion across OTT, mobile and desktop in Q3 2024. There was a 10% increase YoY and this suggests that it is going to increase in the holiday season. There was also 10% growth in the UK and 7% growth in Germany. Two new markets, South Korea and Japan, were also added in this quarter.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World