Consumers worldwide spent $407.6M across the App Store and Google Play on Christmas, up 34.5% YoY; mobile games rose 27% YoY to $295.6M, led by Honor of Kings
2020 has been a record-setting year for worldwide spending on mobile apps and games, which passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November.
Sensor Tower BlogStephanie Chan
Context & Ripple Effects
Christmas-day mobile spending had already risen from $196M in 2017 to $277M in 2019. The latest result extends that holiday monetization curve sharply, while mobile games supplied most of the day’s purchases.
The reading is consistent with the broader 2020 milestone: annual consumer app spending reached $111B globally, with the App Store accounting for the larger share of that total. Christmas is therefore a high-value snapshot of an increasingly large in-app economy.
First-order effects
Apple’s App Store and Google Play process $407.6M in consumer purchases for the day, while mobile-game publishers capture $295.6M of that spend.
Honor of Kings leads a holiday games market whose revenue grew 27% year over year, reinforcing its position among the day’s highest-grossing titles.
Second-order effects
Game publishers face stronger incentives to concentrate live operations, updates, and paid content around holiday demand windows, where spending is demonstrably elevated.
The App Store’s larger role in 2020 consumer spending makes revenue per active device a more consequential measure for Apple and developers serving its users.
Third-order effects
If holiday gains continue to outpace prior years, mobile distribution will become still more dependent on recurring in-app purchases rather than one-time app sales.
The widening scale of mobile-game spending favors publishers with durable flagship games and the capacity to sustain year-round monetization events.
The trend: Mobile app stores are becoming larger recurring-spend marketplaces, with games serving as the leading engine of consumer monetization.
Global app spending reached $407M across the App Store and Google Play on #Christmas, growing 35% Y/Y from approximately $303M in 2019: https://ow.ly/... #mobilegrowth #holidaytrends #shopping https://twitter.com/...
Seeing LOTS of folks talking about the analyst report where 9 of the top 10 phones activated on Xmas were iPhones. Not as many mentioning that in 10th place (and the only Android in the top 10) is the cute little LG K30. Well done LG. Well done indeed. https://www.flurry.com/...
The top 10 new device activations on Christmas Day in the US: iPhone 11 iPhone XR iPhone 12 Pro Max iPhone 12 iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone SE iPhone 12 Pro iPhone 8 Plus iPhone 8 LG K30 @Apple dominates, but #iPhone12 mini where you at 😫 Source: https://www.flurry.com/...
Potentially sad news for future “mini” iPhones. FWIW I got one earlier this fall and it's a wonderful return to the sensible phone size of the iPhone 5. Wouldn't go bigger again if I didn't have to. https://www.macrumors.com/...
SOUL (Disney+ only) allowed Disney+ to add 2.3 million mobile subscriptions in 3 days. Wonder Woman 1984 (theaters+HBO Max) allowed HBO Max to 554k mobile subs in 3 days. A winning formula, and it's only mobile data (expect more with smart TV, consoles) https://www.bloomberg.com/…