Sensor Tower: YouTube remains world's top-grossing video app, generating $138M in user spending in Q2 2019, up 220% YoY; US users generated ~70% of this revenue
Google must be happy. YouTube is the world's top-grossing app in the photo and video software category for a second quarter in a row.
Context & Ripple Effects
YouTube's subscription push has been compounding for over a year: Sensor Tower credited Red subscriptions when the app first became the top-grossing US iOS app in early 2018, and US streaming-video app spending overall hit an estimated $1.27B in 2018, triple the 2016 level.
This quarter's $138M — up 220% YoY and enough to keep YouTube atop the photo-and-video category for a second straight quarter — shows that growth accelerating rather than plateauing, with US users supplying roughly 70% of it.
First-order effects
- YouTube's Premium/Red subscriptions are now a material second revenue line alongside advertising, concentrated heavily in the US market where willingness to pay is highest.
- Apple and Google's app stores directly capture a cut of this $138M, giving the platforms a growing stake in YouTube's subscription success.
Second-order effects
- Rival streaming video apps competing for the same US subscriber dollars now face a competitor whose spending growth rate (220%) far outpaces the category's own rapid expansion, pressuring their pricing and bundling strategies.
- Sustained in-app subscription revenue strengthens YouTube's hand with creators and rights holders, since it can fund content from two engines — ads and direct user payments — rather than one.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, video platforms converge on a hybrid ads-plus-subscriptions model rather than picking one lane — a trajectory later borne out by Alphabet reporting YouTube revenue surpassed $60B across ads and subscriptions combined.
- Consumer spending on non-game subscription apps keeps scaling as a class — global spend in the top 100 reached $18.3B in 2021 — making direct-to-consumer billing through app stores a structural pillar of video economics, not a side channel.
The trend: Streaming video is shifting from ad-funded viewing toward hybrid ads-plus-subscription economics, with YouTube's in-app spending growth marking each stage of that transition.