Sensor Tower: five out of ten top grossing Apple App Store apps in 2018 are from China, but Netflix holds the top spot with $790M in revenues as of November 30
Paige Leskin / Business Insider :
Context & Ripple Effects
Netflix's hold on the App Store's top spot is the endpoint of a steep climb Sensor Tower has tracked for two years: a 233% YoY jump to $153M in mid-2017 made it the highest-grossing app overall, and by Q3 2018 its ~$243.7M quarterly take across both stores was already the best of any non-game app worldwide. The $790M figure as of November 30 confirms that trajectory held through year-end.
The other half of the story is geographic. App Annie flagged China overtaking the US in iOS App Store revenue back in 2016, ending America's six-year run at the top, and this chart shows that strength translating into individual rankings — five of the ten top-grossing 2018 apps are Chinese. Later Sensor Tower data would show the pattern deepening rather than reversing.
First-order effects
- Netflix ends 2018 as the App Store's single largest revenue generator at $790M, meaning Apple is collecting its commission on the biggest subscription business on the platform.
- Chinese publishers now hold half of the ten top-grossing slots, putting them alongside — not behind — the dominant Western subscription and social apps in Apple's own storefront.
Second-order effects
- The scale of Netflix's App Store bill strengthens its incentive to push subscribers toward direct billing, a tension with Apple that other top-grossing subscription apps watch closely.
- Chinese apps' chart presence forces US-headquartered rivals to treat China-based developers as competitors for the same global paying users, not just a domestic market phenomenon.
Third-order effects
- If the 2016 revenue crossover and the 2018 chart split keep compounding — as the Q1 2023 data showing 156 of 475 top-five slots worldwide held by Chinese apps suggests they did — global app store economics tilt toward Chinese-developed software becoming the default top-grossing cohort, with Western subscription apps holding individual crowns but losing share of the overall leaderboard.
The trend: Mobile app store revenue is consolidating around two poles — Western subscription giants topping individual charts while Chinese developers take a growing share of the global top-grossing ranks.