App Annie: iOS App Store revenue was about 80% higher than Google Play in Q3 2015, up from 70% in Q2 2015
iOS App Store Revenue Now 80 Percent Higher Than Google Play, Thanks To China — The move to larger-screened iPhones has led to China becoming Apple's most important market …
Context & Ripple Effects
App Annie's quarterly scorecard has been drifting in one direction all year: worldwide App Store revenue ran about 70% above Google Play in Q1 2015 after a similar gap in the 2014 Index, even though Google Play consistently led on download volume.
Q3's jump to an 80% gap extends that run, and the driver named in the coverage is China — larger-screened iPhones have turned Chinese users into the App Store's fastest-growing spender base, which is why a market where Apple trails on downloads keeps widening its revenue lead.
First-order effects
- Apple's App Store pulls further ahead of Google Play as the monetization channel for developers, with the gap moving from 70% to roughly 80% in a single quarter on the strength of Chinese iPhone spending.
Second-order effects
- Publishers weighing platform priority face a sharpened trade-off — Google Play's download lead becomes less persuasive against iOS revenue-per-user, pressuring Google to close the monetization gap on Android while China-focused studios tilt launches toward the App Store.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the app economy structurally splits into Android-as-volume versus iOS-as-spend, with China positioned to become the App Store's largest revenue geography rather than a secondary one — a shift later confirmed when China overtook the US in iOS App Store revenue in late 2016, ending America's six-year run at the top.
The trend: The mobile app economy is bifurcating into Android's download dominance versus iOS's spending power, with Chinese iPhone users emerging as the decisive force behind App Store revenue.