Mr Branding: Mobile App Usage Surpasses 4.2 Trillion Hours in 2024, Revenue Growth Continues

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Mobile App Usage Surpasses 4.2 Trillion Hours in 2024, Revenue Growth Continues

Sensor Tower’s annual 2025 State of Mobile report is here and it talks about the latest trends on mobile, highlighting that the mobile market is stronger than ever. According to the report, Google Play and App Store’s revenue for in-app purchases reached $150 billion which is a 13% YoY increase. There were 136 billion downloads made on Google Play and iOS YoY and the downloads have been between 135-140 billion since 2020. New smartphone users are slowing down but this doesn't mean that people are spending less time on their phones because consumers spent 4.2 trillion hours on different apps from Google Play and iOS, which makes 3.5 hours per day. The growth in total hours spent declined a bit from 7.7% YoY in 2023 to 5.8% YoY in 2024.

Downloads and time spent decreased in established markets but it didn't affect revenue growth. The revenue from in-app purchases on Google Play and iOS increased 13% YoY in 2024 and reached $150 billion and it was mostly due to non-gaming apps. There was a 4% YoY growth in gaming apps and 23% YoY growth in non-gaming apps. The market leading in IAP revenue in 2024 was US ($52 billion), with a 16% YoY increase. Europe saw a 24% YoY revenue growth in 2024. The in-app purchase revenue for mobile games grew 4% YoY to $81 billion in 2024 after seeing two years of decline. However, downloads declined 6% YoY to 49.6 billion.

AI apps are also doing good on Google Play and iOS and are already a billion dollar industry. AI Art generator and AI chatbot got $1.3 billion from in-app purchases with the US being 45% of the market for generative AI apps in terms of revenue, followed by 4% of the UK, 4% of Germany and 3% of Japan. More than 100 apps have added AI related terms to their apps names or tags which shows that AI technology has grown a lot and is expected to grow more in 2025.

Some other things that the report talks about is cryptocurrency apps are gaining transactions again after 2021 while social media apps are also seeing a quick growth in their revenue in 2024. Many of the apps on Google Play and iOS are also connecting mobile to in-person experiences like grocery store, outdoor health and restaurant apps.