App Annie State of Mobile report: app store consumer spending was ~$100B in 2018, up 75% from 2016, global app downloads were ~194B in 2018, up 35% from 2016
App Annie's 2019 State of Mobile report has a bevy of factoids and projections enterprises need to consider as they take on their mobile and digital transformation strategies.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second installment of an annual benchmarking ritual: last year's State of Mobile report counted 175B downloads and $86B in consumer spend for 2017, and the 2018 edition shows both curves steepening — spend up 75% versus 2016 while downloads rose 35%. Spending growing more than twice as fast as installs is the signal enterprises reading the report are meant to act on.
The series App Annie built here became the industry's yardstick: subsequent editions tracked $170B spent in 2021 before Data.ai recorded the first annual spending decline in 2022, making this 2018 report the midpoint of the boom years.
First-order effects
- Enterprises building mobile and digital transformation strategies get a fresh baseline: a ~$100B consumer market growing far faster than the 194B-download install base justifies shifting budget toward in-app monetization rather than acquisition alone.
- App publishers and platform owners now have third-party evidence that per-user spending is compounding, strengthening their case with investors and advertisers for app-first business models.
Second-order effects
- Rival analytics and market-intelligence vendors face pressure to publish comparable annual benchmarks, since App Annie's State of Mobile is becoming the default citation for board-level mobile strategy decks.
- Advertisers and brands reallocating budgets follow the money: if consumer spend keeps outrunning download growth, ad pricing and sponsorship inside established apps rise relative to paid user acquisition.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — monetization deepening faster than installs — the industry's key metric shifts from raw downloads to revenue per active device, favoring incumbents with large engaged bases over new entrants buying growth.
- An annual, widely cited spending benchmark gives platforms and regulators a common number to argue over, setting the stage for future scrutiny of app store economics as the market scales past $100B.
The trend: The mobile app economy is compounding through deeper monetization of an already-massive installed base rather than install growth alone, with App Annie's annual State of Mobile report serving as the standard measuring stick.