Sensor Tower: US iPhone users spent an average of $58 each on in-app purchases in 2017, up 23% YoY; entertainment apps spending up 57%, lifestyle apps up 110%
Games, dating apps and streaming services contributed to a rise in consumer spending in iPhone apps last year …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sensor Tower's 2017 figure slots into a multi-year climb it has tracked for US iPhone spending: an average of $33 per user in 2015, then $58 in 2017 rising to $79 the following year, and eventually $138 by 2020 — the fastest annual growth since 2016. The 23% jump matters because it shows per-user monetization accelerating even before subscription economics fully took hold.
The category mix is the signal here: entertainment apps (+57%) and lifestyle apps (+110%) outgrew the overall average, pointing to streaming services and dating apps — not just games — pulling wallets open. That mix foreshadows the non-game subscription boom Sensor Tower later measured at $18.3B globally across the top 100 non-game subscription apps in 2021.
First-order effects
- Streaming, dating, and lifestyle app developers enter 2018 with evidence that iPhone users will pay meaningfully more per head, strengthening the case for paid tiers and subscriptions over ad-only models.
- Apple's App Store becomes the clear beneficiary of the shift, since these purchases flow through its payment rails and commission structure.
Second-order effects
- Developers in adjacent categories — fitness, education, utilities — face pressure to replicate the entertainment and lifestyle playbook with subscription pricing, expanding the non-game revenue base.
- As per-user spending climbs faster than user growth, acquisition economics tilt toward retaining and upselling existing iPhone users rather than chasing download volume.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mobile app businesses restructure around recurring consumer payments rather than one-off purchases or ads — a shift later visible in install growth stalling while spending keeps setting records, as Sensor Tower found when H1 2021 installs grew just 1.7% against record spending of $64.9B.
- Sustained double-digit per-user growth cements iOS's role as the premium monetization platform, reinforcing the iOS-skewed spending split App Annie measured when 65 cents of every app dollar went to Apple's ecosystem.
The trend: Mobile app revenue is decoupling from download volume, shifting from pay-per-download and ads toward per-user subscriptions concentrated on iOS.